


Outlast: Birth by Flame

by Unquiet_Grave



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Study, Explicit Language, F/M, Medical Trauma, Multiple Personalities, POV First Person, Psychological Horror, Reincarnation, Sexual Content, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-20 23:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 69,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13728552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unquiet_Grave/pseuds/Unquiet_Grave
Summary: After a failed suicide attempt, Mel is thrown into a secret, experimental treatment program for women at Mount Massive. She hopes to find a cure for the bizarre condition that has stolen her life away. When chaos erupts at the asylum, she is forced to survive, fighting for her life and sanity. She wants nothing more than to escape, but the other personalities living inside of her have different ideas. Another patient, a strange, Bible-thumping woman with a dark secret, may hold the key to stopping Murkoff's hellish experiments. Mel must find her first, while fending off Variants, Father Martin's cultists, Murkoff soldiers, and, most terrifying of all, her own, bloodthirsty inner demons.





	1. Multiple Mel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie encounters some of the other female patients at Mount Massive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Finally finished with the edits (I think). If anyone notices anything glaring, any continuity errors or game facts I got wrong, feel free to let me know. I have taken some liberties with the layout of the asylum and the game's timeline, I hope nothing too obvious. There could probably be a few more tags added in the description, but since people know what to expect playing these games, I don't think tag abuse is necessary. They have feelings too, you know.
> 
> A final word on mental illness and other conditions: I have more or less drawn on popular media for Mel's affliction, including "Split", among others. It is NOT my intention to offend anyone who actually suffers from any mental illness. Her condition is built on a fictional foundation for the purposes of horror and of the story. Again, people familiar with these games should know what to expect, so yeah. Hopefully there will still be a few gruesome surprises. ;>
> 
> I've blabbed on long enough. Please enjoy. 
> 
> -Graves

**Chapter One: Multiple Mel**

 

“From the dusty mesa  
Her looming shadow grows  
hidden in the branches  
of the poison creosote

She twines her spines up slowly  
Towards the boiling sun  
And when I touched her skin  
My fingers ran with blood  
  
In the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon  
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom  
A strange hunger haunted me, the looming shadows danced  
I fell down to the thorny bush, and felt a trembling hand”

 _-“_ Far From Any Road”, The Handsome Family

**August 2 nd, 2013**

I remember once, before being admitted to Mount Massive, watching this movie, _The_ _Shawshank Redemption_. Really can't blame myself for fantasizing about prison breaks, given my current situation. Anyway, the inmates in that movie kept insisting they did nothing wrong. “Me, I'm innocent.” “Lawyer fucked me.” A running joke throughout the whole thing.

But I bet it's the opposite in real life. I bet prisoners brag, all the time, about what they've done, or at least they admit to doing it. They know exactly why they're in there, locked away like animals, for life.

Same rules apply here, in the asylum. It's not like in the movies. A lot of us know why we're here.

I know why I'm in here.

And then there are those like Jessie Holmes. Betsy Roth. Delores Santiago. Hilda Herzog. If God has a blueprint for each of his creations, he must have accidentally sent theirs through the paper shredder. I can see them now, in the crisp, clear summer light of the day room. We're on the female side of the asylum. A place that hasn't seen many patients since the 60s. Hasn't changed much since then, either. Everything smells like mothballs and hospital chemicals, with the underlying musk of something much, much fouler, rising from somewhere behind the cracks in the walls.

 _Eau de les fous_.

Only recently, they've allowed a select few of us here, about 50 or so, for some new 'experimental treatment' program for 'low recovery outcome' female patients. Or so the paperwork says. I've been in and out of institutions long enough to know vague legal-speak when I hear it.

Anyway, back to the circus show. Jessie Holmes is only a few years older than me. Long, unshorn, muted brown hair in a loose braid, dresses like an old maid for someone in her mid-twenties. She's sitting in a corner, her nose in her Bible, a thick stack of notes at her side, right hand scribbling away. She only sets her Bible down to take a bite out of an apple.

Betsy Roth stares out the window at the snow-capped Colorado mountains, her tangled gray hair trailing down to her bony shoulders, faded dress, you could only guess the original color. She's got these hollowed cheekbones and real sad, dark eyes. Frail as a rail, as my mom used to say. Hate to say it, but old Betsy reminds me of the living personification of the Blair Witch. Now that was a good movie.

Fuck, I miss movies. The asylum used to have a working theater, but it's busted up now, or so the orderlies tell us. Derelict, like most of this damn place. Where're they getting all this money for this 'revolutionary treatment'? The suited Murkoff rep in charge of my case said they reopened the asylum for a new charity, few years back.

So far they haven't done jack-shit for me. I've been here for months and have yet to see a shrink. We've only had 'group therapy', which is a total joke. I have no idea how our government allows this place to stay running.

Then again, I don't have any idea about a lot of things.

Anyway, Delores is off somewhere, probably the chapel to pray. She's a devout Catholic. Funny thing is, she hates Father Martin. Hisses at him in Spanish every time he comes near, calls him E _l Diablo_. Always gets a chuckle out of yours truly, to see that priest cringe away from a short old Latina woman. Myself, I stay the hell away from Martin on principle. He creeps me out, to say the least.

Hilda Herzog's working on a puzzle with some other women. She lifts a hand to her freshly-shorn head, scratching the scabs on her scalp. She had insisted she had lice, although they couldn't find any on her. “Zey gnaw on my hed, at night, vile I sleep!” she'd screamed in her thick Eastern European accent. She wouldn't stop screaming, wailing about the gnawing and the itching and the crawling little legs, the 'leetle demons zat chew', keeping us up all night, until the orderlies finally buzzed her hair off, to shut her up.

All of these women, they're too wrapped up in their own bullshit to understand why their families committed them. Some of them are just out of their minds. Not me, though. I wish I WAS crazy. But my head's clearer than ever.

When I'm awake, at least.

I'm startled from my thoughts suddenly by a wicked peal of laughter.

“God dayum! Got them Christians goOOOOod!” a woman in an orange prisoner's jumpsuit cackles from an empty table, one sneakered foot resting on its surface.

Ah yes, last but not least, the newest arrival: Ellen Rivers, aka The Truckstop Killer. Now her, I should mention quick. She was all over the news a few years ago. Killed five men and two women. The men were hardworking, all-American truckers, the women both inmates at a prison somewhere in West Virginia. Ellen was robbing and killing haulers, see. They would pick her up at truck stops, assuming she was a lot lizard, but instead of getting their dicks sucked, they all wound up with a bad case of death—in different ways.

Few weeks back, in group therapy, Ellen had told us the first man beat her near to death when she refused to do anal. He had her bent over the seat, bleeding from her ear and nose. That's when she reached for the pistol in her purse on the floor. Spun around on him. Pulled the trigger. Splattered his brains all over the dashboard and windshield. Took his cash. Time would come again for more money, she was starving, alone, and she'd head for the next truck stop, the next poor sap to invite her into his rig.

Rinse and repeat.

A traumatized, raped woman, her lawyers had pleaded to the court. Forced to live on the road, Ellen Rivers did what she did out of fear for her life, and of course, mental illness, hence her arrival at Mount Massive. The two women she'd killed were also in self-defense. They had jumped her while in prison in West Virginia, something about her accusing them of betraying her to a prison guard, which had led to, she claims, an attempted rape by said guard. Both women were found with their necks slashed. Ellen had used a shank she'd made from a toothbrush and a handle made from a knitted doily.

Martha Stewart would have been proud. I just wonder where she gets the nerve.

“HA HA HA HA!” Ellen laughs again, taking a long drag off her cigarette.

I look up to see what she finds so fucking funny. A newswoman on the old CRT mounted to the wall says something about another mass shooting, this time in a church in Dearborn, Michigan. 45 dead.

“Early reports are still coming in, but responders are saying there are no survivors,” the reporter says gravely. “The gunman turned the weapon on himself before police could arrive. Local police will be holding a public conference at five; the details about the suspect and motive are still under investigation. And on to our next story, out of rural Arizona, several locals have gone missing on a Native American reserve...”

My stomach sinks. It seems like every time I wake up, some new psycho's taken it upon himself to end a bunch of people's lives over nothing. But this news apparently strikes Ellen as the comedy bit of the year.

“Yessir, got them Christians REAL good! Right where they pray!” Ellen laughs, slapping her knee.

Right on time, her glasses flashing in the fluorescent lights, Jessie Holmes looks up from her Bible and says, “You'll regret that remark, when demons are torturing you in hell.”

Ellen goes silent for a long, heavy moment.

“Shit, I'm in hell right now, twiggy,” she snaps, folding her arms. She's pretty muscular, despite her slim frame. Her straight, blonde hair falls down her shoulders, and black eyes glitter at you like heated pieces of coal.

Right now though, her shark eyes are focused on Jessie. Tension builds in the air. The other patients turn away, minding their own business (the ones that had the ability to mind anything, that is). I can't take my eyes away. I'm stuck in place.

Ellen waits til Jessie goes back to her reading. Smooth and sleek as a cat, she rises from her chair and stalks toward her on thin legs that have done a lot of walkin'. Jessie's face is hidden by the enormous Bible and her bug-eye glasses. I don't say shit. I've been in the system enough to know not to snitch or intervene. Doesn't change the fact that my stomach drops the closer she gets to Jessie.

I turn away for a second, looking for the orderly. He's slipped away somewhere, probably out of sheer boredom.

I turn back, in time to see Ellen snatch the thick, leather-bound Bible out of Jessie's hands.

“Give that back!”

Ellen dangles the Bible over her head, making the cover flap. Notes fall out of it, drifting down to the floor. Jessie springs out of her chair.

“This outta be good,” I hear someone mutter to my left. I turn, to see Gina Jacobs is watching the exchange, too. Gina's one of only three black female patients at Mount Massive. They're seated around a table, playing a game of cards. The sleeves of Gina's orange jumpsuit are rolled up, showing old-school tattoos of a closed fist, a hand of cards with four aces, a roaring lion, and a dollar sign.

“The fuck you starin' at?” she barks at me.

I turn my head away, just as Jessie shrieks at Ellen,

“I said give that back to me, Satan's harlot! Your filthy whore's hands don't deserve the word of the Lord!”

“True, but I do deserve some new toilet paper,” Ellen sneers. She doesn't back away, even as Jessie gets in her face. She holds the Bible as high as she can instead, taunting, “Think I'll keep it.”

“WHORE!” Jessie's pallid face has turned blood red, frothing with anger.

“Jessica! Wrath is a sin!” someone hollers from the dusty old couches. I don't know their name, but they're part of a group of congregates that always sit together, talking about their odd Christian offshoot of a religion. Jessie hangs with them sometimes, but she mostly goes it alone. That's about the only thing we have in common.

A few more seconds of reaching for her Bible, and Jessie's had enough.

“Let go, you...you BITCH!”

She shoves Ellen by the shoulders, who barely moves an inch.

Ellen whips her hand back and whacks the Bible against the side of Jessie's head, sending her glasses flying. Jessie stumbles back into her chair. Ellen straddles her, takes her by the hair, and starts wailing away on her, not with girly slaps you see on reality TV, but closed-fisted punches to the head.

Real prison shit.

Jessie's head is rocking back and forth, like those inflatable punching bags I used to beat up as a kid.

_Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!_

Ellen's fist against the meat of Jessie's face makes weird, dull sounds. Jessie's putting up a fight, but she's slowly sinking to one side, losing consciousness.

“DONT. YOU. EVER. FUCKIN'. TOUCH. ME. CUNT!” Ellen bellows with each blow.

Just then, an enormous orderly by the name of Ray Johnson thunders into the room. He's about as big as Shaq, but has the temperament of prime-Mike-Tyson-on-PCP when he's mad. Right now there's a vein bulging out of his bald forehead. His uniform makes him look like a big, pissed, black Mr. Clean. I want to laugh, but he goes to his waist for his wooden club, and we all know what that means.

“ENOUGH!” he shouts at Ellen.

But Ellen is too caught up in her rage to do anything. Ray storms over, club raised, and Ellen has the sense to glance behind her at the sound of his footsteps. She rises, one fist bloody, focusing on Ray now, but in a final vindictive move, kicks Jessie's Bible away from her.

“Lost my temper is all,” Ellen says quickly as Ray towers over her. “Lost my temper because she-”

Ray looses his club on her, striking her in the side of the head. She falls to the floor, but catches herself on her hands and knees. I get the feeling it's not the first time she's been hit. Her nose is crooked where it's been broken at least once.

Blood drips on the linoleum. He hits her between the shoulders for good measure. She thuds to the floor, cursing him.

“Fucking nigger, I'll fucking hang you with a vacuum cord, just you wait!”

He hits her three more times, each time harder than the last. She resists him for the two, still cursing, but on the third hit she rolls over and raises her arms over her face, wailing.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!”

Ray grabs her by the wrists, flips her like a doll, and restrains her with plastic ties. By now two more orderlies, hearing the commotion, have run into the day room. They rush over to help Ray, though he doesn't really need it, injecting Ellen with something before dragging her out of the room.

Before they're out of earshot, I hear, from my spot by the door, one of the orderlies say, “Gonna get this one into the program a lot faster than the others. Annoying bitch.”

Soon the only sign of the fight is the drops of blood on the floor, the Bible, laying open a few feet from the chair, and Jessie, still slumped over, unconscious. Her glasses, made of some miraculously thick material, are at her feet, unbroken.

I look around. Three 'droolers', as I call 'em, are whimpering hysterically. One of them is pulling at her own hair (what remains of it, the rest is a bald patch). Baldy stumbles over my way, babbling and sobbing, but I give her the cold shoulder and she moves on.

“Fuckin' unreal,” Gina says to her two tablemates. They go back to their game of rummy.

I focus on the blood, on Jessie's slumped frame. Was anyone coming back to check on her? A few minutes go by. The droolers migrate over to Jessie, nudging, tugging on her clothes, moaning. One of them steps on her glasses but they still, by what is surely a miracle of her Lord, do not break.

Even the droolers get bored and go back to their inane muttering somewhere else in the room. Betsy Roth hasn't once looked away from the window, continuing to stare at the mountain, as if it has all the answers. Crickets chirp through the open, barred windows. The sun is starting to set, filling the room with reddish-orange light. It reminds me of rust and bonfires on cold winter nights.

It makes my head feel...sorta fuzzy.

Hilda and the others go back to their puzzle (a seal balancing a red ball on his nose) which hasn't made much progress. So far they have connected two out of twenty pieces. That's only taken them ten days. Hilda goes to take a piece, large enough for a child's clumsy hands, out of the brightly colored box, puts a finger in her mouth, mutters and shakes her head. Puts the piece back in the box, hand shaking.

Rinse and repeat.

The sudden quiet in the room unsettles me. Something draws me over to Jessie like a magnet. I can't explain why, but before I know what I'm doing, I pick up her glasses, shine them on my shirt, and put them back on her face. She's still slumped against the arm of the chair, breath whistling through a swollen, bloody nose and purple lips.

Her face is almost unrecognizable, a cruel imitation of the real thing, a toddler's poorly-constructed sculpture of a person.

“The fuck you do that for? You know the orderlies are comin' right?” Gina yells from behind.

“What? But they were already here!” I spin around, not recognizing my own voice. “They just took Ellen away. W-why would they be back?”

“Who the fuck is Ellen, bitch?” Gina shouts, mock-slapping the side of her head then pointing at me. “YOU did this!”

I look around, heart pounding in my ears, my mouth suddenly bone dry. Every face in the day room is trained on me. Gina and her two pals are standing a few yards away, watching. Confused, I spin around to face Jessie. Her glasses have slipped to the tip of her nose. I reach out to push them back up for her.

I draw my hand back, gasping.

My left hand is drenched in blood. Jessie's blood.

I did this. I hurt Jessie. Not Ellen.

Or is my name Ellen?

“Who am I?” I croak. My vocal cords feel strained, like I've never used them before.

“And now your voice is different too! You really crazy, huh?” Gina huffs, hands in her pockets. She spits at my feet and turns away. “Comes the orderlies now. Here comes Ray.”

She and her friends shuffle back to their table, as Ray bursts into the room, brandishing his club. Instead of a tall, muscular, Shaq-esque guy in a uniform, it's a short, angry, bald, Irish-Italian guy with thick black eyebrows and forearms like hams.

He rushes over to me, before I can do anything. I couldn't, even if I wanted to. I'm in shock. My fist throbs from the blows I dealt to Jessie. Why is this happening? Why is my breathing so heavy, like I was just screaming my lungs out? Why is my blood pumping with adrenaline?

Turns out the old Ray and this Ray have something in common: they like hitting shit with clubs. This Ray thumps me on the head, right between the eyes.

I don't see stars. There is only blooming, blistering pain. I sink to my knees as two more orderlies rush in.

“You fucking wop! I'll fucking kill you!” someone's white-trash, Midwestern redneck voice tears from my lips.

“There she goes again. She's Ellen this time,” one of the orderlies says, and jerks my hands behind my back. My forehead aches, warm blood leaking onto the floor. I think my skin has split somewhere.

“I don't care WHO she thinks she is, she's a pain in my ass,” Ray barks. “You got the tranq?”

“Right here.” The other orderly snaps a glove and presses a small jet of liquid from the tip of a silver needle.

“NO!” I scream, as they grab my arms. “Don't prick me with that shit! I don't want it! I DON'T WANT IT!”

“Don't care what you want,” the orderly says, and sticks me in the neck. Plunges the clear liquid into my veins.

Clarity strikes me like a bolt of lightning.

I'm Mel again.

Really Mel this time.

A low, keening cry of confusion leaves my lips as the orderlies drag me out of the light of the day room, into the dark mouth of the inner asylum.


	2. The Other Halves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie finally makes some headway with her therapist, Dr. Hannigan. She reflects on the final moments before being admitted to the program.

“All right, Melanie.”

“That's Mel to you.”

“Okay, Mel. Let's go over it again. What do you remember?”

Dr. Hannigan, my designated therapist, eyes me carefully from across his desk. I hate that look, the I-have-a-PhD-therefore-worship-me look. Although, weirdly enough, this shrink doesn't have his degree hanging on the wall. His office is cluttered with cardboard boxes, like he's just moved in. An expensive-looking laptop rests to the side of his desk, the aurora light screensaver shifting from blue, to green, to purple.

Somewhere behind me, a clock on the wall keeps time. _Tick, tick, tick, tick._

“Nothing.”

I answer him honestly. I have no memory of assaulting Jessie, but everyone says I did, so it must be true. Besides, my left hand is bruised and bandaged, the knuckles capped with scabs. My forehead aches horribly where Ray cracked me.

“You sure? Take your time and think about it.”

_Tick, tick, tick..._

I watch as Dr. Hannigan writes something on his clipboard notes. He's got short, ginger hair and fair skin, and is slim for a thirty-something with a sedentary job.

Hard to think, when my skull hurts this bad. The medical staff had to give me eight stitches between the eyes, up to my hairline, like god-damned Harry Potter himself. They sewed me up, and didn't say a word, didn't even give me my letter to Hogwarts. And I have my doubts that my complaints would make it to Murkoff's HR.

“Look,” I tell him, gesturing to the thick manila folder on his desk. “You have my file right there. I black out every time this happens. One minute I was in the day room and the next thing I knew I woke up with THIS.”

I point to the stitches. It's not even the worst thing I've woken up to. Dr. Hannigan keeps writing, not looking up. My temper makes my head throb even worse.

“You want me think about it?” I yell. “I had three days, alone, strapped to the gurney to think about it!”

Three days and three nights listening to the godawful racket coming from the male ward. What the hell are they DOING over there?

“I believe you,” Dr. Hannigan says, not without sympathy. I shut my lips. It's strange to hear that from one of the staff. But now he's writing even MORE notes. The room is so quiet it's uncomfortable. He licks a finger and flips to a fresh page of paper.

“Do they pay you by the word here or what?” I ask. “How much _does_ Murkoff pay, working at a place like this?”

Dr. Hannigan pauses from his writing. He smiles. “Actually, I volunteered to be here. Murkoff isn't paying me a dime.”

That surprises me a little, but I don't let it show. “So, you like charity cases? Or are you just too bad at your job to get real work?”

I clench the fingers on my left hand. They're stiff, but at least the swelling's gone down.

“I see that you're left-handed,” Dr. Hannigan observes, changing the subject. He motions to the wooden crucifix on the wall. “Back in the old days, that was a sign of the devil.”

Was that some sort of judgment? I've had religious therapists try to evangelize me before. I say nothing, frowning. This doctor, despite his plain looks and manners, doesn't strike me as a devout person. There are icons from every religion, in fact, from the pagan to the ultra-conservative, displayed about his office in semi-organized fashion.

A large, locked metal filing cabinet sits in the corner. The boxes are stacked almost to the ceiling, and there's a small bookshelf with about two-dozen volumes. Pretty sloppy, compared to some of the offices I've been in.

“Not much of an organizer, are you?” I say. “You know, hoarding is a mental illness.”

Dr. Hannigan clears his throat. “Let's move on. You and this Ellen persona have a disdain for religion.” He opens the folder and flips through my file. “There's nothing in your history about a negative run-ins with any religion. No cults, no Catholic school, no early childhood trauma. Care to offer an opinion?”

I consider him, instead of the question. My whole life I've had to read people, watch them for signs of an outburst, a berating, a beating. Growing up in an unstable household, a child of two alcoholics, you learn a thing or two about people's moods. Their disposition. What pleases them and what makes them angry. You have to be willing to adapt, be what they want you to be.

They can still surprise you, though.

Hannigan seems like the type that wants to do right, but he wants to BE right, too. Christ, what would Lane think about this clown? It's funny how in situations like this, I always go back to memories of us, in junior high.

I straighten up in my chair slightly, angling my chest toward the doctor.

“I dunno. No priest ever diddled me, that's for sure,” I smirk at him and smile coyly. Lane would've been prou-

“Who are you now?” Dr. Hannigan interrupts, leaning forward. He scribbles rapidly with a ballpoint pen on his papers.

“Mel,” I insist, folding my arms. I thrust my back against the chair and open my legs, glaring at him haughtily. I tilt my head so my hair covers part of my face, giggling. “I'm always Mel, idiot.”

“Not right now. Right now you're showing signs of another persona of yours. I'm guessing it's Lane Anderson?”

“Lane was real!” I burst out. Wincing, I rub the stitches on my forehead. They itch like crazy.

“Mel, listen to me. Lane Anderson is not real. You invented her. You're aware of the other personas, so why not accept that this one is, too?”

My forehead feels like it's gonna split open. I growl at him, “She's NOT made up. She went to school with me. She was my best friend.”

“Really? Let me tell you about Lane.”

He flips back through my file, going back in time. I close my legs and cross them again. My hands instinctively shoot for the pockets of my black hoodie, only to find empty air. There is no hoodie. I'm wearing the same drab, patient's uniform: sleeveless, bleached cotton shirt and pants, flat sneakers.

Dr. Hannigan reads a page printed from the internet, stumbling over the spelling errors:

“'Lane Anderson is twenty years old. She had wavy black hair to her shoulders with purple tips and wears heavy eye makeup. She also wears tight black clothes, a hoodie, and Doc Martens wherever she goes. Personality traits: creative, artistic, fun, flirtatous, deviant, bold, clever. Lane is a survivor.'”

He stops, puts the paper on the desk in front of me.

“This was all printed from an old Livejournal of yours, circa eighth grade. It was titled 'My Other Halves'.”

“Stop,” I tell him, cringing hard. “Stop. I'm me. I swear. I'm Mel. You're making my fuckin' head hurt!”

“Okay, Mel,” Dr. Hannigan sighs, massaging his temples. “I need an explanation. We can't get you further into the program until we fully establish your psychological profile. And given your...'other halves'...that profile is taking some time to build. You understand? You WANT to go into the program, right?”

“Am I not in the program now, Agent Smith?”

Dr. Hannigan scrawls loops of black ink on his paper. He doesn't care about me. He just wants to see me off into his precious program so he can add me to his list of successful referrals. I'm just another case to him. Just another number.

I'm so tired. It feels like I didn't sleep at all, the three days I spent in solitary. Though I must have, I was conked out for most of it...

I need help. I need to make him understand. I need these goddamn stitches to stop ITCHING!

“I dunno what to say,” I tell him, rubbing my forehead until I can feel the scabs crack open and bleed. Dr. Hannigan hands me a tissue.

“It's like the other personalities show up, and I think I, sort of watch them, like an illusion or something. Then I fade into the background. They take over. If I try to remember, it's like a tape that's been recorded over too many times. When I wake up, I have to deal with whatever bullshit they've caused.”

“Along with whatever harm they've done,” Dr. Hannigan finishes, somber. His bright blue eyes pierce through me. “I've seen this sort of thing before. What's the longest blackout you've had?”

I think on it for a few seconds. “Nine months. Maybe longer.” Then I show him the inked planetary symbols on the knuckles of my right hand (Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn). “I woke up with these, in a trashed apartment in Boston, track marks in my arm. I hope I had fun, whoever I was.”

Dr. Hannigan presses his index fingers together and rests them on the tip of his nose. He explains, “Memory loss is common in people with multiple personalities. I've heard of people blacking out for years. Starting families and waking up one day next to a complete stranger, in a strange house, in a foreign neighborhood. Although, such cases are extremely rare.”

“Yeah, well mine like to keep me on the run,” I say. “I don't think any of them are the 'starting a family' type. Usually when I wake up, it's in a hospital somewhere, or a shelter bed, or-”

My voice trails off. I'm too ashamed to say, but I've woken up naked in an alleyway, bruised all over. I've woken up to new tattoos and piercings, including my left nipple (I tried to yank that one out, but it hurt like a bitch, so I left it). I've woken up next to men and women I've never met before. I've woken up with clown paint on my face and a dead chicken with all its feathers plucked on my bed, a fat stack of hundreds on the dresser.

One or two of them may have even killed somebody, but I can't be sure what's lies and what's not.

Dr. Hannigan reads my expression, and furrows his brow with concern.

“You don't have to tell me everything,” he says gently. “Do you recall two of you ever existing at the same time? Did they ever leave a note for you, or try to visit you? Could you call them into the room, if you tried?”

“No,” I say, bristling. How could I make him understand? “It's not that easy. They're not under my control. They show up. I black out. I wake up whenever they're done. Call it Multiple Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality with Bipolar, Schizophrenia, I've been diagnosed with it all. What's your diagnosis, huh?”

“I'm not here to diagnose you.” Dr. Hannigan clicks his pen off and on. Scribbles a note. “I'm here to make sure you're competent enough for the treatment.”

Competent? I thought this program was for crazy women?

“And the good news is, I think you are.”

I smile at him. “Good. So when do I go?”

“Soon,” is all he says.

My temper flares, and I clench my hands into fists. I muster all my courage and look him in the eyes. “Listen to me. I don't know how many more nights here I can take. There are voices. Screams, coming from the other side of the asylum. I don't know what goes on over there, but it's definitely no fucking picnic. You hear them, don't you? You can hear them right?”

Dr. Hannigan's lips thin. He is thinking carefully about what he wants to say.

“I'm not here at night,” he confesses. “But, I'm sure it's only the patients. There are far more men here than women. The ratio is something like 3,000:50. They make more noise, because there are greater numbers of them. Simple as that.”

No, it isn't. But I'm not going to argue with him. I need him to get what I want: a cure for whatever's wrong with me, or at least, a way to control these personalities. Dr. Hannigan takes a prescription pad and gives it his signature. The Murkoff pharmaceutical logo is stamped at the top. Two steps forward, three steps back.

“I don't take meds,” I tell him flatly. My mouth has gone dry. “They told me there would be no meds. They don't work.”

That's a lie. I'm pretty sure, based on empty bottles I've found after blackouts, that one of my personas, Natalie Vasser, pops antipsychotics for fun.

“Just a little something to help you sleep,” he assures me. “This is a drug-free treatment program. Minus the odd sedative, here and there. Many of the participants here have substance abuse issues, like yourself. Our goal is to wean you off them.”

I straighten my spine in my chair. “I don't do drugs. Never even touched alcohol.”

He flips back a few pages to some photocopied documents. I catch a glimpse at the outdated letterhead: Stonewall Asylum, my first experience in a nuthouse. That was so many years ago; I was just a scared little kid then. I can still smell the urine-soaked sheets, can still taste the coppery iron of blood on my dry, cracked lips. I can still hear the screams and shrieks and laughter of the insane, like a demented circus tune playing on a loop.

Dr. Hannigan's calm voice interrupts the unpleasant memories: “You and I both know that's not true. Says here you started with pot and booze with some friends in junior high. You managed to graduate high school, an average student, and start community colleges classes, but dropped out. You were...a psychology major?”

I smile at him. “What's the matter? Worried your profession attracts the mentally deranged?”

Hannigan smiles back. “Same thing could be said for doctors.” He clears his throat. “From there you moved on to harder stuff, once you were on the streets. You-”

I roll my eyes. This is all stuff I've heard a million times before. A sob story nobody's interested in hearing. His voice drones off. I'm in my own head now. A girl's voice is pleading to me. Back at Stonewall. Back where it all started.

_“Promise me you'll come back. You'll get me outta here, right Mel?”_

_“I'll try.”“_

_Please, Mel! Nobody here pays any attention to me. It's like I'm invisible. Promise me if you get out, if we can't escape,  you'll come back for me!”_

_“_ _I promise, Grace.”_

“Promise what?”

I blink once, staring at a statue: Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess, on a shelf.

“Mel? Was someone else talking to you, just now?”

“...No?”

Dr. Hannigan rises, walks to the shelf, and picks up the statue. He hands it to me. It's a splendid little figurine, no bigger than my hand, but very heavy, carved out of onyx, with painted gold accents. The cat goddess sits on her haunches, tail curled around her legs, with a noble, angular face and large, watchful eyes.

“You like cats?” he asks. “I myself have five.”

I set the statue down on his desk. “Yeah. Once, when I was little, I had a black cat named-”

Someone knocks on the other side of the office door.

“Dr. Hannigan! It's Sarah! I got more stories for ya!” a woman calls.

“Our time is up,” Hannigan says. He stands, and I do the same. “Try and behave until our next appointment, Mel. And get some sleep, I can tell by the dark circles you're not. I promise, you won't have to wait much longer.”

Panic sets in.“I want my treatment NOW,”  I tell him, blocking his way to the door. “These talks don't help. I'm gonna get worse. Look what happened to Jessie! HEY!”

He sidles past me and opens the door. A gangly male orderly named Trevor is standing with Sarah, an older woman with auburn hair, streaked with white. She gives Trevor a repulsed look, as if she's standing next to a giant pile of stinking garbage, before striding into Hannigan's office. Her hands are restrained behind her back.

Sarah the Scratcher likes to go for the retina.

“Take care,” Dr. Hannigan sends me off, handing my prescription to Trevor. Trevor waits for the door to shut before turning to me, offering me a greasy smile. His teeth are stained yellow by years of coffee and cigarettes. A thin line of black hair trails across his upper lip like a dead caterpillar.

Why do pervs always have the same fucking moustache?“Are you Melanie today?” he asks me, pocketing the paper. “Or somebody else?”

“Mel,” I correct him, avoiding eye contact.

“Mmmm. That's too bad,” he says, rubbing one of his hands against his thigh.A sinking feeling enters my guts, but I can't place where it's coming from. Feels like a fish is flopping around in my stomach, and my mind goes foggy, like its trying to remember something. It's a sensation I feel all too often. I let my hair cover my face and try to look as small as possible as Trevor escorts me down the hall.

He says nothing at first, which suits me just fine. We get to the elevator. He takes a key ring from his waist and unlocks the door, slides it. We step in, he slides it back. The door screeches on its hinges. He pushes a button and the elevator rises.

“I prefer the stairs, better exercise,” he says. “Have you ever tried running? They say it's wonderful for your mental health.”

I don't answer. He's standing way too close, I can feel heat coming off his body. He's about a foot taller than me. A bit thin for an orderly, but he's fast. I've seen him knock patients to the floor and cuff them in seconds. I've also seen him slurp at an egg salad sandwich in the most disgusting manner possible, savoring each wet bite, licking his fingers like a five-year-old.

The elevator crawls upward, taking its sweet time. Do they desgin these things to be as slow as possible? Hurry up!

“Don't talk much, do you?”

I say nothing.

“I always see you writing in your diary,” Trevor mentions, watching the door, as if he can see through it. “What are you writing about? Boys you miss back home? You got a boyfriend?”

“In case you haven't noticed, I'm not twelve,” I snap. I know I've made a mistake right away, but I can't help myself. My diary is a sensitive subject. It is my only link to, well, ME in this world. I have it hidden in a safe place. Not even this creep could find it.

Trevor chuckles. “You're not a nice girl are you?”The elevator stops. No one else is around, and my heart starts to race. He cranes his neck, looks down at me like a rat that's cornered a tasty morsel at the end of a maze.

“Nice girls don't dye their hair such ugly colors,” he says, and reaches out. Touches my hair. I awoke a few months back to find it dyed silver, with black roots and streaks. Don't remember doing it. Not really my style.

I step away from Trevor's probing fingers.

“Hey, no need to act all weird,” he soothes. “We're all friends here. See?”

He slides the elevator door aside and gestures for me to step out. His body is blocking most of the door frame, and I have to skirt around him to leave. Just as my foot touches the floor, the other still inside, Trevor leans in and brushes his hips into me. I can feel the beginnings of his erection against my outer right thigh.

“We're gonna get to be GOOD friends, Mel.”

I start walking toward my room, as fast as I can go without running. You ever try to walk fast in a dream, only to feel like a video game character glitching out? That's how I feel. My face is burning, but I don't dare to look back. I wish I had the nerve to punch him in his smug fucking face. Kick him in the balls. Ellen Rivers would. Ellen would rip his balls off and bounce them down the hallway.

But I'm not Ellen. When it comes to fight or flight, it's always flight for me.

Trevor follows me with slow footsteps, taking his time. Finally we both arrive at my room. He unlocks the door and opens it wide.

“Chivalry isn't dead after all.” He smiles. “Be seeing you.”

I bolt past him into my room. He shuts the door behind me, and I hear the lock turn. Was that a chuckle from the other side? I listen, waiting, but there are no sounds. Then, after a minute goes by, he finally leaves. I don't feel safe until I can no longer hear his footsteps.

Exit Creep #1. Enter Silence.

I go over to my bed and sit down. Room doesn't have much. A bed that's welded to the floor, a lumpy mattress, white sheets. The window has no curtains. A wooden table (screwed to the floor) and an overhead light, no lightswitch. They control the lights. There's no toilet or sink, either. If I have to use the bathroom, or if there's an emergency, there's a red button I can push by my bed. But if Trevor's on hall duty, you can bet your ass I'm holding it til dinner.

I've never actually pushed it. I doubt the stupid things even work.

I lay there for a few minutes, just breathing. Trying to get my pounding heart to calm down. I roll over on my bed and feel around on the floor, searching for a loose floorboard. My finger snags the corner of it, and I pry it up. The wood smells like layers of varnish and ancient dust, like something in a museum.

I pull out my diary and flip through the pages, reading through the last entry before my admission:

**March 15 th, 2013**

_The Murkoff guy in the suit seems like a corporate pawn to me, but what do I know. I know my mother trusts him, and that's definitely a sign he's no good. She looked so sad when she signed the papers, back at the hospital. I was cuffed to a bed, but I could see her leaning over in her chair, reading the legal stuff on the clipboard, the suited guy standing over her, a hand on her shoulder. Her own hand trembles as she fills out the forms. It's withdraw tremors. When was her last drink?_

_“We just can't help you anymore, Mel,” she tells me, handing the clipboard over to the Murkoff employee. She can't even look at me. “There's no money left. Your daddy n' I lost a lot to lawyers when we split. I lost my job at the pharmacy. The rest went to your cousin's bail money. The debt collectors won't stop harrassing me about your medical bills. And now your useless father won't return my calls.”_

_She rubs her face with her hands, saying into them, “We can't help you, baby. I'm sorry.”_

_The Murkoff guy has the nerve to say something like, “It's okay, ma'am. Your daughter is in capable hands.”_

_Mom gets up, turns toward me, like she wants to come over. Changes her mind. I stare straight ahead at the door. I haven't seen her in years, haven't spoken to her in months. She's a lot thinner than the last time I saw her. I look different, too. My years on the run have kept me slim, almost gaunt. And of course there's the hair, tattoos, and piercings (I gave up trying to remove the ones in my nose and eyebrow, they keep finding their way back after each blackout)._

_Yeah, Mom looked sad all right. But she signed those papers, all the same. Even though my file has no emergency contact, the hospitals always get ahold of her. I should have known I can't draw a line through her name and cut her out of my life that easily, like she did to me._

_The Murkoff guy takes the papers and escorts Mom out of the room. She turns back to look at me once, then walks out the door..._

_Fuck it. Maybe they can fix me. I've been to a million shrinks. Not one of them can help me. But maybe this new treatment will work._

_It sucks that I'm the only one of my halves that journals. I know to call them “halves” is wrong, since there's more than two, but that's the term I coined when I was thirteen and I'm fucking sticking with it. Maybe I could get a grip on this if I could TALK to them, at least read their thoughts._

_Lane, what would you do right now, if you were still alive?_

_You took the easy way out, Lane. I always said I would never do what you did. Truth be told, it's always terrified me that a person as cool as you were would take all those pills and end it all. Sign off for good. I remember waiting on the old_ AOL _chat, listening for the sound of the door opening and I'd see your screen name_ (BlackCat88). _Waiting, waiting, waiting. But the door never opened again._

_I fought it for so long, but it all went downhill, and I decided to chase after you. No, that's wrong. I was ending it for MYSELF. I only ever do things for me, for my survival. I just felt like I had no control. Ending my existence was something I could do, something real. I've had my silly little attempts before, my cries for attention, but I was serious this time._

_I took that razor and said my goodbyes and blasted some depressing music and sat myself in the bathroom. It took a long time to work up the nerve, but I went through with it, and Lane, it was fucking terrible. A nightmare._

_But here I am. I couldn't even do that right. Isn't that what the self-pitying survivors always say?_

_I failed to even kill myself._

_You now what's funny? As I lay there, blood draining out of me like hot soup, vision fuzzy and black on the edges, the stereo—it was in the middle of a Chelsea Wolfe song. It changed, Lane. In the middle of the song. Somehow that ending tune from_ The Shining _came on, you know the one, it plays when it zooms in on the old photo at the hotel? The one we always used to sing in the halls at school to each other._

 _“_ Midnight with the stars and you, midnight and a rendezvous...”

_I was about to die, and that creepy old song was the last thing I was gonna hear. Someone or something was mocking me. Was it you?_

_It remains the same. I'm a failure, Lane. And I'm scared. Scared of the future. My blackouts get worse. I can't keep running._

_I'm afraid one day, I'm gonna black out, and I won't be me ever again._

_-Mel_

I shut my diary for the moment, unable to read further. Wiping my eyes, which have suddenly gone wet, I put the diary back in its hiding place. Look down at my wrists, where the razor left its clean, straight marks. The pink lines are healing, my cells slowly converting them into scars.

It's messed up, but these scars, they comfort me. I made them. If I wanted to, I could destroy my other halves. I would die in the process, but at least they would know I'm serious. At least they would know I have some control over them.

I've been a long way already, and I have a long way to go. But the sooner I get into the program, the sooner I'll get better.


	3. Treatment Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The female patients get their first round of treatment. One of Mel's personalities shows up, asking questions about Father Martin. 'Therapy' goes horribly wrong...

Something really weird is happening at Mount Massive, and I don't throw that word around lightly these days.

Every time I turn around, another patient's converted to this strange religion. It's spreading like the plague among the women here.

It started with the Apostles, as I call 'em, the twelve women who sit on the couch and do nothing but read _Revelations_ and talk about how the end days are coming. Their leader is a woman named Madge. Madge is in her fifties, as wide as she is short, with curly gray hair, glasses, and toad-like lips which she smears with dark red lipstick. She wears these yellow frocks that look like they belong on a little girl. If she flapped her great, flabby arms hard enough, she might be able to fly straight outta this place.

The king at the top of Clusterfuck Mountain is Father Martin. He's allowed to visit the women's ward, see, and the chapel, to do his spiritual counseling. I can't tell if he's a patient or an employee or what. They let him wear his priest's robes, either way. Every time he's around, I can hear him coming, singing some eerie song under his breath. He walks almost as if he floats, his black robes whispering over the floor, like some kind of vampire. His eyes are sunken in, as if he never sleeps.

Nobody at Mount Massive sleeps, not for long, anyway.

“Have you heard the word of the Lord yet, my child?” Father Martin asked me once, in passing. It was a foggy morning, and I was standing in front of the fountain in the courtyard.

“Still waiting on his email,” I told him. Father Martin only smiled knowingly, as if he were in on a private joke.

“Fear not, child,” he told me, clasping his pale hands in front of him. “The time is approaching. All eyes will bear witness to the first coming of the Savior. There shall be two births in the flames, and the first one shall release God's avenger from the clutches of the enemy. The second one shall birth the Savior needed to remake this world.”

I pick up a pebble and toss it into the water with a plop. “Sounds lame, if you ask me.”

“Hmm. I know you will find your faith, soon enough.” Father Martin caressed the edge of the stone fountain with a finger. And with that, he left for the male ward, singing his bible songs.

Freaking weirdo.

Back to Madge, though. Madge has gone missing. The orderlies came and took her away about a week ago. Then, taking two at a time, they picked up all of Father Martin's Apostles and took them away, too.

Haven't seen them since.

It all rubs me the wrong way. I decide to bring this religion crap up in group therapy today. To call it therapy is a sham, but any break in a private room, away from the droolers, the wailers, the cutters, the shit painters, the hair pullers, and the pants wetters is welcome here.

We sit in a circle of wooden chairs. The therapist is an old guy with a crown of snowy hair and hooked nose like a vulture's beak. He watches the session from behind a glass observation window and steel wall. It seems out of place. The group therapy room is like a bizarre hybrid of old 1900's architecture, retrofitted with modern technology, like some kind of cyborg.

The therapist records our conversations with a mic and types frequently on his computer, as if he's at an office job and we aren't even there. I feel like a zoo exhibit.

An old projector is mounted to the wall behind me (above the observation window), and there's a movie screen pulled down at the front of the room.

That hasn't been there before. And I doubt we're gonna watch _The Magic School Bus_.

In group today are Delores, Betsy, Hilda, Hilda's two puzzle-solving geniuses Mary and Marcy (both mute as far as we all know), Gina, her friends Rhonda and Dee, and a girl around my age, by the name of Sam.

Sam is just finishing up her turn to speak. She has sleeve tattoos on both arms, her face and ears are stapled with piercings, and her neon-pink hair is streaked with black. A tattoo of a pentagram peeks beneath the collar of her shirt, situated on her right upper breast.

I had Sam pegged for some kind of new-age artist, or a stripper, or maybe just your run-of-the-mill junkie. I had even talked to her a few times about our favorite bands and movies (hers is _Trainspotting_ , mine is _Day of the Dead)_. But what she says next surprises me.

“And that was my last fight with bulimia,” Sam says, in her valley-girl accent. “I'm happy to say that since I've been here, I haven't had the urge to binge or purge. I've been saved by the grace of the Lord, thanks to Father Martin and his friends.”

Another one? I wonder. What the fuck? Is this treatment program just a Catholic conversion camp?

A few robotic claps from the women as she finishes. I believe Sam about the bulimia part, anyway. I can see she's putting weight back on her upper arms and legs. She's even got a pot belly, which sticks out on her skeletal frame. Her complexion, however, is paler than usual. There's a red sheen to her eyes that I doubt is some new makeup fad.

“Thank you for sharing,” the white-haired therapist says through the speakers. He has a slight Austrian accent. Dr. Some-long-German-surname. I'll call him Dr. German. I don't bother memorizing their names anymore, there seems to be a different one each time we sit down for these bullshit meetings. All they're ever interested in is our stories. They like to draw the details out, too. Some women, it's too much for them. They break down.

I don't have to worry about a breakdown, though, because Gina's next. She folds her arms across her chest and regards the therapist, eyes narrowed. She's got a women's crew haircut with a side bang that hasn't changed since the 90's. The back of her head is shaved and fades into the hair at the top. Rhonda on her left is completely shaved, and Dee has long, braided dreads that trail down her back and a scar as thick as a pairing knife under her left eye. The three of them together could star in a Tarantino flick.

“Gina,” Dr. German says. “Tell us what's on your mind. Why are you here? What are your hopes for the program?”

“Don't feel like talkin',” Gina says in a low voice. “Least of all to YOU.”

Rhonda and Dee nod silently in agreement.

German types away on his computer, and says, “I know we've been putting a lot of pressure on you. You've all been very patient, for the most part.”

Gina rolls her eyes.

“That's why we're going to start a preliminary treatment today. But first I'd like to hear a little more from each of you. Remember, if you won't talk,  you won't get treatment.”

“Fine, if it'll get you to shut up,” Gina snaps. She rests her arms on her knees, hands opening and closing. She's not used to talking about her feelings. “I guess I'm hoping this treatment, whatever the fuck it is, can figure out why I'm so god damn crazy all the time. I been like this my whole life. Every since my mom was murdered. Ever since I saw them take her off the streets, in the back of the ambulance.”

“What happened ?” the therapist asks, curious. This is more than Gina has ever said before. I feel a stab of pity for her.

Gina only glares at the doctor, rubbing the back of her head. “She died in a drive-by shooting. I ain't sayin' no more.”

“Now Gina,” the doctor starts, “As I said before-”

“FUCK what you said, old man! I said I ain't talkin'. Either start the treatment or take me back to death row. I killed enough motherfuckers to have me executed, like a hundred times over. Just start the treatment or let me go back and die. I'd rather die than listen to this bullshit anyway. I used to think I was lucky that judge back in Detroit found me unsuitable for retrial, or whatever the fuck. Now I realize this is all a waste of my time. Ain't no cure for what's been done to me. Not now; not ever.”

She looks away, and I think she might have tears in her eyes, but it's probably just the lighting. No one says anything. A few people think shes' done, so they clap dully. Hilda winces and scratches her head, mumbling.

You'll probably think I'm nuts, but I feel bad for Gina. I admire her hardness, even if she scares me. The last thing she probably wants is my pity, though.

“Fine.” Dr. German loosens his collar a bit. “Rhonda, will you do us the pleasure?”

Rhonda looks like she's about to give him the finger. Then she reconsiders and opens her mouth to speak.

All of a sudden, someone interrupts: “Hey ya'll! Sorry I'm late.”

“Ah, it appears we have a guest.”

Standing across the room is the she-devil herself, Ellen Rivers.

She takes a look around, smiles, lights a cigarette. Then she grabs an empty chair next to me, spins it around, and straddles it.

“What'd I miss, Doc?”

“Ah, Ms. Rivers. It's nice to see you again,” Dr. German greets her. Everyone else in the room has gone silent, staring.

“Glad to be back out of solitary. Them boys beat me up pretty good,” Ellen says, with remorse. She touches the stitches on her forehead. “Had me takin' a long nap.”

“There she goes again!” Rhonda explodes, glaring at the therapist. “You really expect us to listen to this shit?”

Ellen turns to her, Gina, and Dee.

“Look, I just want you gals to know, I'm real sorry about all that racist crap I said, back in the day room,” she says, a little too earnest to be truthful. “That ain't right, and I ain't racist at all.”

“Buuuuull shit!” Dee swears.

Ellen offers them a crooked smile. She walks over to the three women and holds out her pack of cigarettes to Gina. 

“I'm sorry, sister. I let my tongue get the better of me. I deserved that ass-whoopin' just for sayin' that word. Truce?”

Gina eyes Ellen, mouth shut tight and thinned into a line. Dee and Rhonda both have their eyebrows raised. Gina looks like she's considering beating this woman to a pulp.

“Fine,” she says, humoring her, and takes a cigarette. “Now go sit your crazy ass down. Lucky I don't have a gun on me. Might just have to stomp you anyhow, but I'm feeling generous today.”

Ellen ignores the threat, or doesn't hear it, and sits back down. I'm just as surprised as the rest of the gals to see her up and moving, after the beating she took. They can't stop staring at her.

“I'd like to bring somethin' up, if it's cool with y'all,” she says, and I see her black eyes move to look at the projector. “Unless you wanna start the movie. That's what that's for, right? I hope it's somethin' good. You got any Spielberg? Kubrick?”

“No, I'm afraid not.” Dr. German laces his fingers and watches her carefully. “You'll be viewing a brief film, at the end of the session. For now, go ahead. Speak.”

“But it's MY turn to talk!” Rhonda protests, stomping her foot. “How come crazy over here gets to skip the order and spill her guts?”

“I'm sorry, Rhonda. You're correct. Go ahead,” he apologizes. Ellen taps her foot repeatedly on the ground, but she manages to wait until the other women share their stories before speaking.

“How come there's so many Christian freaks here, man?” Ellen asks, leering at Sam. “You! Last week I remember you said you were Wiccan or whatever. You seemed like a cool enough chick. Why'd you make the switch? They handin' out free Jesus wafers or somethin'?”

“Father Martin has brought some very important things to light,” Sam says airily. “He has shown me the error of my ways. I have lived a life of prostitution and sin. By obsessing over my body image, I neglected my soul. I worshipped false idols.”

Ellen snorts her disdain. “So Father Martin's your idol now?”

Sam says, “No. But he says our Savior will be here soon, and we need to be ready.”

Ellen's lids lower over her depthless shark's eyes.

“You can be saved, too,” Sam tries. Her face has gone manic, a wild smile on her lips. “He can fix you! If you will only speak with him. You'll see. He can save us from the madness of this world! Of this place, even!”

Ellen puffs on her cigarette. “Hold your breath til I do, sis.”

“The Walrider will see to you,” Sam hisses. “If you don't join us and repent.”

“The fuck is a Walrider?”

Some of the other women exchange confused looks, as if they've heard that word before. I think I may have heard someone screaming it from the male ward, but it's hard to decode the constant babbling and shouting over there.

“That's quite enough!” German interrupts. He stands up and checks something inside the projector. “If you will take a look at the screen, I'll just ask you to watch the film. Remember, you're under observation, so if anyone starts anything or tries to leave, there will be consequences.”

“What're we watchin'?” Ellen asks, blowing smoke in the air.

“You'll see.”

“Nah, fuck that. I ain't watchin' no movie,” Gina says flatly. “I wanna go back to my room.”

Delores, usually quiet on account of the no-English thing, points to the observation window and says, “No confíes el hombre detrás de esa ventana!”

“Now, now. You _fräuleins_ want to get better, don't you?” Dr. German asks. “Lower your voices, please, and pay attention. _Danke._ ”

I focus on the screen like an obedient little sheep. I should be excited to start treatment, so why are my hands trembling?

Ellen puts her hands, also shaking, behind her head and leans back, an impatient scowl on her face. Gina and the others are looking around the darkened room, nervous about something. Betsy: silent, Blair Witch Betsy, has curled into a ball, gray hair covering her legs and shoulders, quivering and whimpering. Hilda and her two cronies gaze at the blank screen, the entire experience lost on them.

“What's your problem?” Ellen asks, turning toward Betsy. “Shut it!”

Just then, the movie starts. Some old, black and white picture. Film grain peppers the screen as the camera zooms in over rolling hills. There are mountains in the distance. It looks like it's somehwere in the Alps, like a black and white shot of _The Sound of Music_. The lack of color and poor quality of the film makes the stunning view seem empty and unfriendly. Threatening, even.

Something blurry, in the distance...a young woman in a white dress, standing on the hilltop? The camera zooms in. It is definitely a woman, her dress and light hair blowing in the breeze. She spins in circles, dancing.

“Whoever's snoring can shut the hell up!” Ellen slams her foot down. “First movie I get to see in months and some old hag's fallen asleep.”

A light hissing sound, coming from somewhere, but where? Nobody's asleep. I look around for the source.

“That ain't snoring,” Gina remarks, worried. She gets out of her seat. Rhonda and Dee do the same. They inspect the room, feeling along the walls.

I listen harder. Look up, at the source of the noise: the air vents on either side of us.

“Gas!” Ellen cries.

She dives to the floor like a bomb's dropped. Gina, Rhonda, and Dee run for the door, pounding on it, yanking on the handle like there's a trillion dollars and a new life on the other side.

Movie is still on. Through the haze of the gas, I see the young woman, her image growing larger on the screen. She stops twirling, standing still, head bowed. She's not wearing a summer dress. It's an old medical gown, a plastic hospital band strapped to her wrist. She lifts her head suddenly. The camera focuses on her face in a giant, horrifying close-up.

Her skin's been peeled off, shaved back like a ripe orange, revealing a smiling skull underneath, and two bulging, lidless eyes. If it's a special effect, it's a damned good one. I can see the blood vessels popping out of her sclera, the veins pulsing across her cheekbones and forehead. Wet facial muscles gleam and twitch.

The woman lifts a surgical scalpel, pokes her tongue between her jagged rows of teeth, and licks the blade. The tip of her tongue falls away neatly.

“ _Schmeck das Blut_ ,” she croaks in German.

“Dios ayudame,” Delores moans, falling to the floor, closing her eyes and clutching her rosary. She starts rocking back and forth, praying feverishly, “Dios ayudame. Dios te salve, Maria. Llena ares de gracia...”

Meanwhile, the gas is still pouring into the room.

“Somebody help us!” Rhonda and Dee run to grab some chairs, coughing and sputtering. Gina pounds harder on the door, bellowing, “LET US OUT! LET US OUT!”

The three women are throwing chairs at the door by now, to no avail. Their exertions force them to breathe heavier, and they start coughing, gagging. They collapse on top of one another.

Noxious air fills my lungs. I can't breathe. The room is totally clouded with thick, foul-smelling vapor.

The skull on the screen winks at me. Blood pours down its mouth.

“WHOA! This movie is trippy as shit!” I hear Ellen laugh hysterically. “Far out, man!”

After that, it all goes dark.


	4. While You Were Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel wakes up from a nightmare, to find reality isn't much of an improvement. Someone close to her is taken away. Her search for answers begins, as she struggles with the effects of the morphogenic engine.

I had a strange dream. I was back inside my mother.

_My world is blind, small, warm, and comforting. I can hear the steady, drumming rhythm of Mother's heart in my ears. It hums vibrations down the umbilical cord, radiating through my core, a heartbeat in my guts. I am one with the Mother. Mother is me. Mother is warm. Everything I am, everything I need, is in this womb. In here, I am fed and sustained, the umbilical my only lifeline to the outside. I never want for anything, not anymore._

_The tubes shoved down my throat and every other orifice, well, those I can do without._

_I am at home in the pulsating, amniotic void. In here, I dream within the dream, strange pictures and words. Where do the images come from? They seem so familiar, as if I've witnessed them before. I do not worry, do not question now. They dance in my mind, shaping, changing the cells, rearranging my wires like good little electricians. But they won't let me stay. Noises invade my private world. Someone's harsh, defiant laughter is stressing Mother. Hurting her. And I can feel Mother's pain, feel HER rage._

“Alarm's going off! We got another rejection incoming. I had high hopes for this one.”

“The brainwaves have changed. Some sort of interference.”

“Another failure. Dump it.”

_Who is she? Who is this woman, who dares harm Mother? Why does she resist? Why? WHY?!_

_Mother has to let me go now. The tubes break free, the umbilical pops out of my belly with a little cloud of blood. There's a great contraction, and the walls of the void crush inward, squeezing me. I am pushed out, violent, sudden, into the cold, harsh light of day: not a birth. A miscarriage._

“F-36 has rejected the morphogenic programming.”

_Mother, help me!_

“Are you sure? The computer's saying now that it took.”

_So cold; I'm so cold. Mother, I want back inside!_

“You want me to show you all this data in the red here? It didn't take. It just doesn't work with women like it does men.”

_Mother?_

“Damn it, wheel her upstairs with the other sows. Send in the next round!”

_MOTHER!!!_

 

I jolt awake on a gurney, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. My esophagus feels like someone shoved a hot metal poker down it and did a few twists.

“Ahhhh,” I groan. An IV drips fluid next to me. My hand crawls across the sheets to the other and rips out the needle. Saline spills all over the floor.

Overhead, an electronic voice booms: “ATTENTION ALL STAFF: THERE HAS BEEN ANOTHER SYSTEM FAILURE. ALL NON-ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL ARE TO EXIT THE MALE WARD IMMEDIATELY. ONLY SECURITY STAFF, CLEARANCE LEVEL 3 OR HIGHER, ARE TO REMAIN.”

The PA shuts off with a fizz of static.

“There you are!” a man's voice cries. Someone rushes over to my bed, and I can't make them out in the dim light. But I know that voice.

“Dr. Hannigan,” I rasp. “Dr. Hannigan, what's going on?”

Something small, serrated, and metal presses into my open palm.

“Hide this. There isn't much time,” he instructs.“What happened to me? I had these nightmares...oh, God...”

“Shhh! They're coming.”

My vision is returning. I see the outline of Dr. Hannigan looking over his own shoulder. He turns back to me, leans in close, whispers in my ear:

“I have to go, Mel. I tried to get you and the others out, but they wouldn't let me. There's another diary. I'm sorry, they wouldn't tell me where, but maybe you can find it. Maybe it'll help you. God be with you. God help me.”

“Dr. Hannigan,” I mumble, but I'm too weak to say anything else. The warmth of his presence leaves as he rushes away from my bed. My head fog lifts for a moment, long enough to see a group of men with guns approach him.

“Ah, there you are, Doctor,” a Murkoff employee in a black suit greets. His grating voice cuts through the air like a rusted blade. “You're coming with us. Sorry to terminate your work here so quickly.”

“I doubt my work would make any difference in this place,” Dr. Hannigan says hotly. “Not even YOU can cover this up, Blaire. Someone will reveal the truth.”

The man called Blaire chuckles. “Not you though, pal. It's time for your de-briefing. Loose ends and all. Come now, don't make a scene. Or do. Doesn't matter to me.”

With those ominous words, Dr. Hannigan leaves with them, his hands cuffed behind his back. I want to call out to him, tell him not to go. But then I hear footsteps clicking on the tile floor, coming towards me.

I have enough sense to close my fist and move my hand under the covers. The suited man, Blaire, takes one look at the disconnected IV and sighs.

“Alice has come out of Wonderland. Did that caterpillar tell you anything interesting, Alice?”

He gropes around the covers, searching for something. I can feel his fingers getting closer to mine.

“Sir!” one of the armed men hollers from outside. “The female ward's been compromised! One of the patients is attacking the women!”

“Fucking Gluskin,” the suited man swears. “How did he escape? All right. I'm coming.”

His hand has stopped just short of mine. He walks away. A brief commotion as they rush out of the room, and I slip back into disoriented slumber.

 

I awake in my room. Panicking, I sit up, opening my hand. A key is pressed so hard into my palm it's left an indent. I close my hand and check my surroundings. Someone had pushed my gurney into my room. I slip the key into a shoe and pull them back on my feet.

Nausea forces me down on the bed. Wracking my brain for answers gives me a migraine. The announcement said there was a system failure?

But the lights are on, and the door to my room is ajar. I rise to my feet, slowly, and stumble, slamming my leg into the corner of my bed frame.

“Shit!” I hiss, rubbing what will be a nasty bruise later. It feels like my body's been put through a meat grinder. Everything hurts. Everything is sore and weak. Fresh bruises on my elbows and knees (strange, I don't remember crawling on anything). My abdomen radiates pain. I lift my shirt, to find a red halo encircling my bellybutton. A scab has formed over the hole.

“Not just a dream,” I say aloud, dismayed. I rub my sore throat. I may not remember much, but the tubes have left their mark. “And they took Dr. Hannigan away. Shit, oh shit...”

Tears of disbelief stream down my face. It's like I'm using my eyes for the first time. Any type of brightness hurts, and I avoid looking up at the ceiling. I limp to the door and peer into the hall. No sign of Trevor or the orderlies. The lights are on, and my room is the only one open. I can hear pipes steaming and old timbers creaking, groaning. The machine is still very much alive. But is the wizard still behind his curtain?

I wipe my eyes, and start walking down the hall. My body cooperates more with each step, remembering its strength. I jog my brain, starting with the last thing I remember: Gina and the others, screaming. Gross smells. A woman's raucous laughter. And then things too disturbing to put into words.

The rain pattering on the roof does little to soothe me. I feel like Hilda and her bugs, the little demons crawling and chomping on her flesh at night. Only mine are in my head, not on top of it.

What are these images? I can't make any sense of them, but it's like they're burned into the back of my eyelids. And the dreams! The awful, maddening dreams! Like someone else's nightmares shoved into a blender.

I fall into the wall and vomit. There's a surprising amount of volume to it, as if I've eaten a big meal only hours ago. But I haven't eaten since before group therapy, and that was probably days ago.

That could only mean one of my other halves ate recently, and they would have had to escape my room, probably break into the kitchen to do so. Gorging themselves on hotdogs and beans, by the look of it. Ugh.

Then it hits me: Dr. Hannigan. There's more than one diary, he told me. At least one of my halves has been keeping notes. As long as I've been alive, I've never found another trace of them, other than the odd receipt or trinket. They never keep notes, photos, or videos. They're even careful to clear their internet history.

But if there's another diary, maybe I can learn something!

I shudder, rubbing my arms. So quiet, in here, not like before. It's the middle of the afternoon, but rain streaks the windows with gray mist. Looking for people, I stumble downstairs and all the way through the empty day room, into the courtyard, by the old, stone fountain.

I'm no longer alone. I've come across a meeting of some kind. The twelve Apostles have grown in number: at least 30 of them have gathered, standing in the rain. Many have shaved their heads. They don't look like women anymore. They are surrounding someone, murmuring prayers.

Madge has returned. She's sitting on the edge of the fountain.

I push through the crowd to get a good look, and gasp aloud in horror. Madge's skin has gone sallow, like cured fat. Large chunks of her hair have fallen out. Her eyes have sunken into their sockets, where two white pinpricks leer out at the world. She was heavy before she was dragged off for treatment, but now her belly is completely distended and rotund. It sticks out like a gas-bloated corpse. She rests her wrinkled old hands on the bump, a proud smile on her amphibian face.

I look around, realization dawning on me. Some of the other women are holding their bellies, too. I'm standing in a sea of pregnant women, many of them far beyond their childbearing years.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I slur. How long was I asleep?

Madge's beady little eyes settle on me. Rain drips off her jowls, onto the swell beneath her frock.

She opens her arms to me and cries, “Ahh, another one! Come to us from the depths of the great sleep. Have you heard the Word yet? Has He blessed you with child?”

“What happened to you all?” I shout. Swallow what feels like glass, wincing.

“The Lord has rekindled our wombs! We are to birth his followers,” Madge proclaims, and throws her hands in the air. The Apostles all raise their hands to the monochrome sky, cheering. A clap of thunder rumbles across the asylum.

“Praise God!”

“Praise Father Martin!”

“Praise the Lord!”

“Join us!”

“COME!”

A cold, clammy hand parts through the crowd and grasps my shoulder. Fingernails dig into my flesh. I tear away from them, running back to the day room. The Apostles don't follow me. I nearly collide head-on with someone as I dash inside, out of the rain.

“Ow! Watch where you're-” Jessie Holmes starts to say, but she takes one look at me and shrieks. “Get away from me! HELP! Someone help!”

She rushes past me for the door.

“Wait, Jessie! It wasn't me!” I shout after her. “It wasn't me! I'm sorry! Wait! STOP!”

To my surprise, Jessie halts in her tracks. She tucks her Bible under one arm and adjusts her bug-eye glasses. One hand remains on the doorknob, ready to flee if I show any indication that I'm Ellen Rivers. I hold out both hands.

“I'm not Ellen,” I assure her.

“You just keep your distance,” she orders, pointing at me. “Stay away.”

I take a step back, and she relaxes a little.

“Jessie, do you know what happened here?” I ask her. “Why are those old women pregnant? Where's the staff?”

“Much has happened, since you disappeared.”

Jessie's hand clenches the doorknob, so hard I see the whites of her knuckles. She scans me up and down. “You sure you're...YOU? Melanie?”

“I _swear._ ” I lower my hands to my sides. “And I didn't disappear. I was taken somewhere. I think they gassed me, took me away. Not just me, some of the other women, too.”

Jessie's eyes widen. She glances at the door to the courtyard. “Took you to where?”

I shake my head. “Dunno. I'm so confused. Please, will you at least talk to me? I feel like I'm going insane.”

Jessie twists her mouth into a frown. Only a few scratches and a bruise under her left eye remain of the beating Ellen put on her.

She says, “I know of your illness, your personalities. Dr. Hannigan told me about it some. But that doesn't mean I forgive you.”

“You don't have to,” I tell her. “Jessie, I think something bad happened to Dr. Hannigan.”

I recount the story to her, but leave out the part about the key and the diary.

When I finish, Jessie bows her head. “I will pray for Dr. Hannigan. He was a good man.”

I ask, “Have you seen me sneaking around at night? Not acting myself?”

“No. Last time I saw you was when you beat me.”

I cringe.

“You sure?”

“YES,” she says emphatically. She turns away from the door and takes a seat in an armchair. I sit next to her. She opens her Bible and scans over a page, adding, “Lying is a sin. So is pretending to be someone you're not.”

She marks something in her Bible with her pen. Her lack of interest in all this craziness starts to aggravate me.

“How come you're not out there, with those freaks?” I ask. “They're Christians, like you, aren't they?”

“They are NOT true Christians,” Jessie scoffs. “They follow a false idol! Father Martin is a demon leading them astray.”

Things aren't adding up. I rub the faded line from the stitches on my forehead.

“Jessie, what's that date? I feel like I've been out for-”

“Almost three weeks. It's August 22nd. That's how long since I've seen you, anyway,” she tells me.

Three weeks, gone in an instant. It should have shocked me, but I've been gone for worse stretches.

 I mention, “There was an announcement over the loudspeakers.”

“A security breach. Entire sections of the asylum were shut down,” Jessie confirms, raising her pale, freckled fingers to her lips, remembering something terrible. “Then there was Eddie Gluskin. He escaped and...”

She falters, hanging her head. Takes a deep breath. Crosses herself.

“And?”

“And he killed some of the women. Hilda and Sam are dead.”

“WHAT?” I burst out, shocked. “Did they call the cops?”

Jessie shakes her head, her braided hair swaying. She looks like she hasn't slept in days.

“I haven't seen any. They couldn't find Eddie, so they just quarantined the last area they saw him in. We're restricted to this floor and our rooms now.”

All these women, trapped, with a psycho on the loose. Great.

“This isn't right.” I cast a paranoid glance around the day room, at the empty tables and chairs, the activities left there, abandoned. Most of the women are outside, with Madge, or just gone. No sign of Gina and her two cronies, either.

I say, “They're treating this place like it's a compound. Like a prison. What else have you heard?”

“Not much. The orderlies that are left don't tell us much of anything. But they're afraid. I can see it on their faces.”

She's scared, too. The way she clings to her Bible, checking over her shoulder.

I lean just a bit closer, lowering my voice. “I don't think this place is what we thought it was. Can I tell you something?”

“I guess.”

“I got their so-called treatment. I can't remember what happened, but I had these nightmares. And they hurt me.”

I lift my shirt and show her the nasty wound on my bellybutton, where something had forced its way inside. She recoils at first, then nods her head in recognition.

“The great sleep,” Jessie mentions. “The other women speak of it. They call it a vision. A vision of their false god. Satan's promise.”

She points to my belly. “I have seen wounds like yours, in the showers.”

“Right, I...UGH!”

I can't stutter the words out. Rapid flashes burst into my vision. I have to shut my eyes for a second as the images come racing in. Unwanted shapes and faces and things I cannot name, fluttering like moth's wings into a burning light. The nausea comes back full force, and I double over and gag.

Whatever this is, it isn't good.

“Oh God,” I moan. “What if I'm pregnant like them?”

Jessie snaps her Bible shut. “Children are a precious gift. If I conceived, I would keep it, no matter what.”

I open my eyes out of sheer anger and glare at her. Does this woman have no empathy at all?

“I didn't ask for your opinion,” I snap, still doubled over with sickness.

“I only mean to say, life is sacred from the beginning,” Jessie says. She rubs her thin arms, shivering. “The people here don't value life. I think I want to leave. This place isn't what I'm looking for.”

“What ARE you doing in here, anyway?” I ask, curious. “You seem sane enough.”

Jessie blinks and glances to the side, in a way that reminds me of Velma from _Scooby Doo_ , and I have to restrain a laugh.

Then she says, completely straightforward, “I burned down some churches.”

“Sorry, you WHAT?”

“They were empty!” she adds, folding her arms. “Well, empty of all the parishioners.”

“But you're a Christian! And that's someone else's property.”

“And people and children are property of God,” Jessie says cryptically. She raises her head, glares at me. “But I have said enough to the likes of you, heretic.”

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I was wrong about Jessie.

“Burnin' churches, huh? That's pretty metal of you,” I admit, grinning.

“Metal music is-”

“Yeah, a sin, I know,” I tell her with a sigh. At a certain point, she's like a broken record player. Still, I'm grateful to have someone to talk to.

“Thanks for filling me in. You're all right, Jessie.”

She considers me for a moment. I start to leave, thinking she wants me gone.

“Melanie,” she calls.

I turn around.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful,” she warns. “Watch out at night. If you hear singing, you best run, fast as you can. Run and hide.”

I take her words to heart. With what I plan to do, I might just be crazy after all.

 


	5. Enter Gluskin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel gets down to business and starts digging around. While searching for answers to her 'blackouts', the asylum goes dark. Mel and a new ally brave the darkness in search of a clue, and encounter their first Variant.

I wait for the remaining orderlies to put the patients to bed, but I have no intention of sleeping. Trevor, a bit more nervous than usual, makes the rounds, counting heads, locking doors. A crooked cigarette hangs from his lips, bobbing up and down as he walks. I guess it was too much to hope that he would've left after the breach, the murders.

Taking some hair I cut from my own head (after laboring with children's scissors in the day room, maybe I should have asked one of the droolers for help), I slip it under the covers and across my pillow. I've also stuffed my bed with towels, in the vague outline of a person.

Trevor's footsteps, getting louder.

I crawl under my bed and wait. My entire body shakes, and my breath seems to come in gasps. Trevor walks in, shines his light on my mattress.

“Goodnight, Mel,” he calls, in a fake, singsong voice.I'm counting on him to be a total pig and try something. My bet pays off. He walks over to the bed. I can see his stained white sneakers. I wait for him to pull back the covers.

“The hell?”

As he steps backward, I kick out and sweep my legs as hard as I can, tripping him. Trevor falls over with a startled cry. I stand up and lunge for the door, but he grabs the hem of my shirt, pulling me backward. I kick him again, and he grunts and lets go. I dash into the hall and slam the door shut. There's nothing to barricade or lock it with, so I run like the wind down the hall, praying I can round the corner before he gets up and out.

My shoes slap tile, the key rattling around inside. I plant a foot and nearly throw myself around the bend, just as I hear him curse and the door slam.

I head for the stairs, jumping down two at a time. I dash for a darkened hallway, where the doctor's offices are located. As I suspected, there are no guards. I take off my shoe, grab the key, shove it in the lock. I rattle the knob, but the lock does nothing.

Trevor's frantic footfalls cascade down the staircase. Flashlight beam dances in the corner of my eye.

“I'll fucking beat you senseless!” he yells. I believe him. I'm not too keen on having my head bashed again. A girl's brain cells can only handle so much.

“Please,” I whimper to the door.

It's no use, the handle doesn't budge. I take the key out and examine it.

Of course, idiot! It's for the filing cabinet.

I run to the next door and jiggle the handle. Locked. I run to the next one and try it. Unlocked! I barge in, shutting the door as quietly as possible behind me. Without turning the lights on, I grope for a chair, find one, and prop it against the door. There's a dim red bulb glowing on an electric panel, so I use it to navigate past storage shelves, farther into the room.

The door rumbles. Pushes against the chair, which screeches and moves a little.

“Oh Meeeel,” Trevor calls. Raps his wooden club against the door. “You in there? Or is this another one of your games, Lane? Come out and swallow your medicine.”

Creepy fuck. I gotta get away from him. I search for anything, another door, a desk to hide under, but there's nothing. I look up by pure chance, and notice the open air vent above me. Climbing the shelves, I hoist myself into the air duct and start crawling in the direction of Dr. Hannigan's office. All I need is a buzz cut, a lighter, and a machine gun, and I can go full John McLane.

The vent reeks of stale air and a foulness I could only compare to roadkill. Despite my slim frame, the walls close in around me, and I feel like a mouse that's been swallowed by a python. I would probably take dealing with a giant python over Trevor. I manage to worm my way to the shaft above Hannigan's old desk. Trash and papers are strewn about his office. The desk has been overturned, gutted. My stomach drops.

What if they took the filing cabinet? One little key isn't gonna stop Murkoff from getting those files.

I slide down, landing hard on both feet. Pain shoots up my legs, and I have to clap my hands over my mouth to keep from crying out.

This room is even darker than the last. I inch my way toward the door and press my ear to it, listening. No sounds from Trevor. He must have given up and gone somewhere else. That, or he's been spooked by something. Just in case, I gather whatever junk I can find in the dark, mostly loose papers, and jam it under the crack in the door. I flick the light on, praying it doesn't shine under the door and give me away.

Somone's ransacked the office. But the filing cabinet is still there. I rush over to it and jam the key into the lock of the top drawer, labeled files A-H. I rifle through the tabs until my finger snags mine: Hargrave, Melanie K.

My heart sinks. Someone has taken most of the papers out of my file (but who?). What remains are a few sheets of heavily edited documents, most of the text blacked out. Should have known better than to get my hopes up. I read one anyway.

Date: May 27th, 2013

Time of session: 8:08 a.m.

Patient Name: Melanie K. Hargrave

I.D. Number: F-36

Location: Mount Massive facility, female ward

Observations:  Initially I thought [REDACTED] but patient seems to be doing better since she's started here. [REDACTED]. After an attempted suicide her mother agreed to the treatment protocol and signed her into full custody of [REDACTED]. I questioned the patient about her other personalities, and it was soon made evident that [REDACTED] was speaking to me, instead.

I asked [REDACTED] what she was doing here. She told me that she was [REDACTED] and trying to [REDACTED], showing me some artwork she made in the day room. She then revealed to me that she's been [REDACTED] with [REDACTED] and I suspect this is deviant behavior typical of the patient's personas. Will report to my superiors for advisement.

[REDACTED] disclosed to me that she was recently caught sneaking to the kitchens, claiming she was starving. [REDACTED] also claims to have been sketching a map of her 'nightly adventures' and that she would soon 'bust outta this place'. She would not tell me where this map of hers is.

This persona wishes to leave and doesn't want [REDACTED], for reasons I want to explore in our next session. Will send out recommendations to several colleagues as I feel this is a high complexity case. The patient has a history of leaving AMA, and has not been properly treated due to her frequent blackouts.

I still plan on recomending Melanie for [REDACTED]. From everything the company pamphlet says, it's sure to revolutionize both medicine and psychiatry.

I have not been paid by a Murkoff representative or received legal instruction to make the aforementioned statement.

 

Signed,

Thomas Hannigan, Ph.D.

 

Confused, I read the note again. He was treating my other halves, or trying to. I flip the paper over, and find something handwritten on the back and circled. An afterthought, or put there on purpose?

_PUZZLE._

I think I know what it means, but I can't get my hands on it until the morning. Not unless I want to risk sneaking to the day room. The rest of my file has been gutted. I poke around the rubble in the office, but there's only boring company memos and other garbage.

My foot snags on something, nearly tripping me. I pick up a solid lump of black rock and turn it over. It's the cat statue of Bast. I set it upright in a corner of the room, and give it a pat on the head. I've always been fond of cats.

“Watch over me if you can,” I tell it. Then I close the door and leave the statue behind, in its own little kingdom of darkness.

I don't know why, but I start crying while sneaking back to my room. I guess I'm just scared, but I'm also grateful that Dr. Hannigan stuck his neck out for me like that. I hope he's okay, wherever he is. But I can't shake the feeling something horrible must have happened to him. You don't get led away by a suit and a bunch of guns and come out, fresh as a daisy.

I can't let his generosity wither in vain. As I lay down in my bed, I try to get some sleep, but it's damn near impossible. Trevor doesn't come back to the room to see if I've returned, so there's one small blessing. In the morning, I find that my door is still unlocked. I should feel relieved, but I'm actually terrified: if nothing's locking me in, then what's keeping the things I hear at night locked out?

Morning falls on the asylum. Another rain-soaked day, storms rolling down from the mountain. Barely any sunlight makes it through the windows, and the shadows in here are growing.

As soon as I can, I head for the day room. Hilda's friends are nowhere to be found. They left their unfinished puzzle on the table, where it's collecting dust. They managed to connect four pieces, forming the face of the blue cartoon seal. I flip the pieces over, and find what I'm looking for.

On the back of the puzzle, someone has written, in cursive handwriting:

_From the top: four left, two down. Laundry 2 nd floor._

I flip the puzzle back over and exit the day room, heading for the stairs near the quarantined portion of the ward. But my foot barely takes a step into that hallway before I hear a gruff voice behind me say,

“That's far enough.”

I spin around, to see Ray standing there, blocking my exit. The overhead light shines down on his bald head. His thick arms are flexed, ready to spring.

“You're the one that hit me,” I say, fear creeping into my voice. The line on my forehead still aches when I touch it.

“And I'll hit you again,” he growls. “If you don't come with me. What's it gonna be? Or are you gonna call me a wop again?”

“That wasnt me!”

Ray's face contorts with rage.

“Yeah, right. You crazies are all the same. You lie through your damn teeth. Maybe I should knock a few out for you.” He takes a menacing step toward me. “Got me working double shifts, no sleep. What the hell, this place is closing down soon anyway. I just might do it. I just might.”

“Closing down?” I ask him. “What do you mean? What about all of us?”

“Doesn't concern you,” Ray says through gritted teeth. He removes the club from his belt. There are pieces of dried, pink matter all over it. “Get over here.”

“There you are!”

Like an angel of mercy, Jessie Holmes appears from behind a corner and steps between us.

“You're late for Bible study!” she scolds me, turning to Ray. “She runnin' away again? I'll put the fear of God in this whore of Babylon yet, I swear it.”

Now that there are two of us, Ray doesn't seem as enthused to knock my teeth out. Especially with Jessie holding the Good Book in her arms. His big eyebrows and mouth are drawn in a deep scowl.

“Fuck it,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck with the club, and points down the hall. “Get going. And don't let me catch you wandering over here again! Or I'll brain you myself! It would be a mercy, compared to what's up there.”

Jessie grasps my hand tight and leads me down the hall, across the elevator and stair junction, into a room not far from Dr. Hannigan's office. We're in a small meeting room with a bunch of paintings of the asylum. A few black and white priest photos stare at me with impassive eyes.

“Ow! You're hurting my fingers!” I yelp. Jessie lets go.

“What were you THINKING?” she hisses, slamming the door shut. “They have that stairwell barricaded for a reason. The rest of the asylum's off limits!”

“I have to try,” I insist, pointing to the ceiling. “There's something hidden up there. The laundry room. I think it can help me with my condition. Once I have what I need, I'm outta here. You can come with me, if you want.”

“You're really set on escaping?” Jessie asks, placing a hand on her hip. “You're giving up on Mount Massive?”

I can't believe she's even debating this.

“Yes! The treatment's a sham. That killer's on the loose. Father Martin's building some kind of cult. We gotta get out of here before it's-”

And just like that, before I finish my sentence, the lights shut off. Jessie lets out a startled cry. An alarm klaxon screeches to life over the PA system.

“ATTENTION: THERE HAS BEEN A CONTAINMENT BREACH IN THE MALE WARD. ALL SECURITY UNDER A LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE MUST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. STAND BY FOR ASSISTANCE.”

“Another one?” Jessie murmurs, clutching her Bible to her chest. “What is going ON over there?”

A distant, fuzzy memory tries to float to the surface of my mind, like deja vu, but it sinks back to the bottom before I can grasp it.

“Hellooo?” Jessie drawls, shoving my shoulder. “You still with me?”

I blink, and shake my head. “Yeah. C'mon. We're busting out of here. But I'm going up to the laundry room first. Are you in or are you out?”

She thinks on it for a minute. I'm already preparing for her to say no. Why should she risk her life for me?

But Jessie nods her head, and relief washes over me. We find some candles in the back of the room, lighting them using an old book of matches with a Beatles album on the cover.

“Think Ray is still around?” I ask her, as we exit the meeting room. The hallway is drenched in darkness. Our candles cast oblong shadows on the wall. Thunder booms across the building, rattling the windows.

She whispers, “Let's check.”

We head back the way we came and press against the wall. My position puts me near the stairs leading down into the basement, and I don't like standing so close to it in the dark. Jessie pops her head out from behind the wall, her braid trailing down the back of her churchwoman's dress.

“All clear. Guess the blackout spooked him. Let's hurry,” she says.

We start running down the empty hall. The siren has stopped, but the lights haven't turned on. I don't take comfort in the sudden, cemetery-like silence, either.

“What exactly are we looking for, anyway?” Jessie asks. She still has her Bible tucked under an arm, candle in her other hand.

“Uh, not exactly sure,” I answer, cringing.

Jessie stops in her tracks so fast, a blob of candle wax launches onto the floor. “What? Then what's the point?”

I waste precious time to explain. “Dr. Hannigan said there was more than one diary. I'm following the clues.”

“What in God's name is that supposed to mean?”

“My personalities keep diaries,” I tell her, flustered, knowing it sounds insane. “They wouldn't want us—me—to find them, so they hid them. I know where one is.”

“This is crazy,” Jessie huffs.

“I realize that,” I admit. “But I have to try. It's my only chance to know what they've...what I've been doing, while I'm asleep. Get it?”

“Not really, no. But God is telling me to go with you, so I will obey.”

 _Well, thank God for that!_ I want to say, but I bite my tongue.

A strange noise drifts down the hall. We both press against the wall, crouching. It sounded like someone crying, followed by a high-pitched giggle.

“Thus the demons begin their ascent from hell,” Jessie whispers in my ear. “The Lord has put you in His sights, Mel. Don't disappoint him.”

I want to tell her God's sight ain't what it used to be, that He's been pulling a Stevie Wonder lately, but I'm too scared to say anything else. We keep moving and reach the stairwell doors. 

“They're sealed shut,” Jessie says, shining her candle on the wooden plyboards nailed to the double doors. Behind them, someone has stacked random bits of furniture.

“Murkoff spares no expense on security,” I mutter, frowning.

Thunder shakes the windows in response. I forget it's the middle of the day.

“Look there. Up!” Jessie points, to a broken pane of glass above the door. Someone has placed a flattened piece of sheet metal, forming a makeshift platform. I don't think much on it, but Jessie looks concerned.

“Who put it there?” she asks. “And why?”

“Does it matter? Here.” I kneel, and offer her my hands as a step. She looks down at me and chuckles.

“I'm at least a head taller than you. Let me help you first.”

“Oh, right,” I say, feeling stupid, a dumb smile on my face. I'm just happy to have company, for once.

We set our candles down and she hoists me toward the platform. I seize it with both hands and pull myself onto it, dropping down the other side. Jessie's not long after me. She blows out the candles and gets up and over the window with ease. We light the candles again and head up the stairs.

In the hallway on the second floor, something's splattered all over the walls. It looks suspiciously like old blood. A female mannequin lays in pieces on the wooden floor, its blank face caved in, like someone's punched it repeatedly. There's a door to our right, but it's barricaded almost all the way to the ceiling.

“Lord in heaven,” Jessie says, gesturing to the mannequin.

“Who did that?” I wonder.

“I don't wanna know.” She turns to me. “Are you SURE this is worth it?”

I pause for a moment. We could try to sneak out, leave the diary behind. But I'm too curious to stop now. I have to know who's been living inside me, all these years. This is the first chance I've had to see on the other side. Besides, it might just help us escape. It was important enough for Dr. Hannigan to mention, and that's good enough reason for me.

“I think so,” I whisper.

“You THINK so?” she hisses.

“Shhhh!”

We stop in our tracks, listening like two rabbits in the farmer's garden.

“Did you hear that?” Jessie asks.

I swallow. “Yes.”

A weighted ball forms in my stomach. It sounded like someone was singing: happy and slow, under their breath. But it's stopped now. I get the sudden feeling we're being watched, and my flesh breaks out into goosebumps.

“Keep moving,” I tell Jessie. “Let's get in and get out.”

We follow the signs for laundry and reach it without any trouble. I'm sweating through my uniform, and Jessie's looking grim and pale, the candlelight glinting in a fiendish way off her glasses. I look around, counting the tiles in the floor and walls. I check every combination of loose tile I can think of, but nothing budges.

“Maybe in the closet?” Jessie suggests. She pulls the collar of her dress over her nose. “Yuck, something stinks.”

“You stand guard,” I say, and she nods, looking out the doorway. I open the door to the supply closet. Something is piled in the back, and smells like maggots have been at it. I bring my candle overhead, and almost scream.

A dead security guard is slumped against the wall, resting in a pool of his own blood. He's been stabbed between the legs. His pants are split, and even in the scant light, I can see rats have been gnawing away at his flesh and genitals.

Someone has smeared the word UGLY on the wall behind him, in his own blood and shit.

I force myself to turn around, counting the tiles from the top of the ceiling, facing the door. Four left and two down. There's a discolored tile that seems out of place amongst the others. I finger the tile that should match the combination, and it wiggles loose.

Inside the square hole in the wall is a composition book, the kind I would use in school. I remove it and hold my candle over the cover. It's decorated with intricate doodles and patterns in different colors of ink.

Written in the center: L's notebook.

L for Lane.

This can't be right. Lane is dead, isn't she?

My head starts to hurt. I place a hand on the front of the book and flip it open, holding my candle closer. Hot wax drips onto my skin, but I'm too transfixed to care. I've forgotten everything around me, including the dead body. My eyes rove over this stranger's handwriting. What has she been up to, when I'm not awake? A funny feeling tingles in my brain, as if I'm about to remember a long-lost dream.

The door to the laundry room rattles.

“Mel!”

I step out, to see Jessie's wide, deer-in-headlight eyes facing the door.

“Someone's there,” she mouths to me, backing against the wall.

“Locked?” I ask her, pointing.

She shakes her head.

We run for the closet. I shut the door and slide the deadbolt, and we back away a few paces. Jessie claps a hand over her nose and mouth, gagging. She turns around, sees the guard's dead body, and lets out a muffled cry.

“Darling?” a man says softly.

Shit, oh shit, he heard us.

We wait a few seconds, and there's no sound, no movement. Jessie is trying not to gag, doubled over, face pressed into her Bible. I'm about to let out a sigh of relief, when we both hear someone, just behind the closet door.

“Did I hear a little bird,?” the pleasant stranger's voice calls. “A little female bird, fluttering around her cage?”

The handle to the door shakes. Our eyes fix on the lock. I'm praying to whoever that it doesn't budge.

“Darling now, don't be shy!” he soothes. Then, a bit more forceful, “NOTHING can stand between our love.”

The stranger slams his body against the door, cracking it.


	6. Second Dose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search ends badly for Mel and Jessie. Mel gets another taste of the engine's effects, and wakes to a bloody confrontation in the medical bay, where a certain Variant has emerged.

I search wildly for something to block the door with, but there's nothing we can move ourselves.

The door cracks again, louder this time. Something blunt, a fist or foot, pounds against it. The wood splinters. Whoever's on the other side is incredibly strong. There's now a small, diamond-shaped hole in the middle of the door.

Through the diamond, someone's ice-blue eye appears. It shines with malicious glee.

“Darling,” the pleasant voice croons. “I KNOW you're in there. I can see you. Stop being coy, now, and open the door for me. I LONG to look at my bride.”

“It's him, its Eddie,” Jessie babbles in my ear. “The one who murdered Sam and Hilda.”

And the security guard, by the looks of it.

We both jump as he slams into the door again. The crack grows, straight up and down the center. I run over and brace myself against it. Jessie searches frantically for a weapon. The best she can find is a mop. She holds it like a club, her Bible jammed under her other arm. But the door doesn't move.

Something has distracted our attacker.

“I must go, my love. But I'll find another way to you, don't worry!” Eddie's voice drifts from the other side. There's a demented quality to his words: the unspoken promise of something twisted, something evil. The hairs on my neck stand up.

“You can't hide from me forever. I'll be back for you.”

He starts whistling, some old tune I can't recognize. The whistling grows fainter, and fainter, but neither of us wants to open the door. It feels like we've been standing there for hours.

The reek of the body and my own impatience drive me to move. I slide the deadbolt and open the door a sliver, holding my candle out. Jessie's right behind me, ready to strike with her cleaning implement of death.

“Empty,” I sigh.

We step into the laundry room and shut the door.

“Can we go now?” Jessie asks, agitated. Her candle has burned almost to a stub.

“I thought you'd never ask.”

We peep into the hallway. It's impossible to see all the way down. But there's no sound, other than the driving rain on the roof, so we start rushing for the stairs. Run down them, Jessie tossing her mop to the side. I ditch my candle, and we hoist ourselves over the blocked door and through the broken window. Once on the other side, we relax a little.

“Thank God,” Jessie breathes, holding a hand to her throat. “I thought I was going to vomit. I thought he was coming in.”

“Me too.” I manage to let out an anxious laugh. “Were you SERIOUSLY gonna hit him with a mop?”

“I didn't hear you complaining at the time!”

“Yeah well-SHIT!”

I trip over something, landing hard on my elbow. Pain rattles up my arm. I've managed to hold on to the diary, though. Nothing's gonna pry it loose from me, now that I have it.

“Damn it! When are the lights coming back on?” I shout in frustration.

“Maybe never,” Jessie says. Her hands find me, and she helps me to my feet. “Here. You okay? What was that? And you're...wet.”

“Ugh.”

No lights? I don't like the sound of that. The asylum is a horror movie itself in plain daylight. And just what the hell did I fall on?

Before we can move, the lights pop back on, as if God has heard our complaints. It takes my eyes a second to adjust. We're standing a few feet from the stairwell doors.

As soon our vision clears, we both scream.

Ray is crumpled in a heap on the floor. He's been stabbed through the crotch, like the dead guard. A pool of his own blood has spread out before him, and I'm drenched in it. It's warm, fresh. On the wall, someone has painted, in loose red strokes: A GIFT FOR MY BRIDE.

Bride, not brides. Which one of us did he see?I'm too stunned to say anything. Jessie bends down and closes Ray's eyes. Whatever he saw last scared the shit out of him.

Jessie prays aloud, crossing herself. “In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy-”

“FREEZE!”

We scream again. A neon-red dot dances across my chest. I look out of the corner of my eye, to see a squad of five armed men in body armor training their guns on us. They close the rest of the gap, surrounding us.

For a bizarre second, I think we're safe. Then I remember there's a dead body at my feet, I'm covered in blood, and, oh, everyone thinks I'm nuts.

“They've killed another one!” one of them yells. I spot the Murkoff logo on his uniform and instantly know we're fucked.

“We haven't killed anybody!” Jessie cries. “We found him like this!”

“Hands behind your head! Let's go.”

We comply, and I'm forced to drop the journal into the blood. Jessie drops her Bible. I put my hands behind my head, and one of the men binds them behind my back with a zip tie. Next to me, Jessie has her head bowed, refusing to look at me.

“Please,” I try. “We did not do this. It was Eddie!”

One of the guys rips off some duct tape from his belt and slaps it across my mouth. He does the same to Jessie, who fights him, but another guy yanks on her hair and forces her head back.

“What do we do with 'em?”

“Check with the boss man.”

“Unit Seven to Blaire,” he calls into his radio.

“Go ahead, Unit Seven,” Blaire's voice buzzes. I know I've heard that voice and name before.

“We have two patients restrained in the women's ward and a 187. Looks to be the work of Gluskin, though.”

“Is Gluskin still around?”

“No. Unit Six just did a sweep of the upstairs, he's quarantined. Just got two female patients and the 187.”

“One moment. We're checking the video feed down here.”

A long, torturous pause. One of the men has a gloved hand on my shoulder, preventing me from moving. Another picks up my journal and tucks it under his arm.

“That's MINE,” I growl through the duct tape.

“SHUT UP!” One of them shoves me forward, and I nearly fall into the blood again.

“Unit Seven, listen to me carefully,” Blaire says, slow and serious.

It finally clicks: he's the guy that took Dr. Hannigan away.

“The tall one you can sedate and put into Program C with the rest of today's batch. The shorter one...bring her to the lower lab. I'll await you there. Understood?”

Jessie moans with fear through the tape. I feel horrible she's been dragged into this, but there's nothing I can do now. If we move, we're dead.

“Copy, understood. Over and out.”

The man behind me takes a pressurized tube off his belt and sticks me in the neck with it.

“Mmph!” I yell.

“Good night, sleeping beauties,” he smirks.

The last thing I see is Jessie slumping over, a needle hole in her neck.

 

 _Mel_ , a child's voice calls my name. A girl's voice, about nine or ten years old.

 _Mmmm..._ Not ready to wake up yet. Let me sleep a little longer, just a little longer.

_YOU PROMISED!_

I awake with a start. Everything is black. Where am I? I seem to be floating in a sea of nothing. It's kind of nice, like that brief moment in a dream when you're flying. But what goes up must always fall back down.

Where am I?

 _Melanie_. The child walks into view, shining, like a golden hologram. She's wearing a medical dress and plastic ID bracelet. Blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her clothes are gray instead of white, like the kind I once wore at...

 _Grace!_ I recognize her. My mouth won't move, but I think her name as hard as I can, and she hears me.

Grace's lonesome, baby doll eyes drill holes into my heart as she cries, _You left me there, Melanie. You promised to come back, but you left me alone at Stonewall. Left me to rot_.

 _I didn't want to!_ I plead to her. _I escaped, but the cops picked me up. I told them about you, but they told there was no Grace Williams at Stonewall. They told me I made you up!_

_You didn't believe them, right?_

_No! I tried to run away from home, tried to get back to you, but my parents stopped me every time. It tore me up inside, Grace. I'm so sorry!_

_I know_ , _Melanie,_ Grace admits. One foot taps at the floor, whatever 'floor' means in this place. She twists her foot, the way kids do when they're guilty of something.

_I know you tried. You tried to keep your promise. And I have a secret._

_What is it?_

Grace walks all the way up to me. She's scared of something, shaking. Like she's done something bad, or something bad's about to happen.

She confesses, _I did get out of Stonewall, Mel. It took me forever, but I found my way out. I've been following you since then. And I've been following THEM too. I know all of them, Mel. There were five of us: you, me, Ellen, Lane...and Natalie._

The last name sends a shiver down my spine. Natalie Vasser, aka Nat. The one I know the least. But she's the worst of them. I don't even like to think about her.

 _And now, there's another one,_ Grace says fearfully. She looks back over her shoulder once. _She knows about me, so I gotta be quick._

_Who is she?_

_She's a stranger. She's from The Thing. From The Other._

_Grace, what does that mean? I'm confused. Tell me her name._

_She doesn't have a name. I can't see her face._

Grace whirls around.

_She's coming! I have to go. Don't trust her, Mel! Don't trust her if she tries to talk to you! She thinks she's good, but she's really, really bad. She wants us dead!_

Grace's illuminated form, running away, growing smaller and smaller.

I call after her, as loud as I can, _Wait, come back!_

It's no use. Grace has left me, and I'm alone again, no longer floating in a weightless coma, but lost. Lost in the endless black.

 

Just when I've had enough, when I think I'm going to lose my mind and give in to my own insane loneliness, I feel something frigid press against my bare skin, above my heart.

It's so cold, I can do nothing but gasp. I open my eyes to bright, crisp light.

“Hey there, green eyes.”

A doctor looks down on me, along with a dark-haired man in a business suit. I'm strapped to a gurney once again, thick leather belts restraining my arms and legs.

“She's awake,” a man in a black suit says, smirking.

“Blaire,” I growl.

“Recognize me, huh? You still have your mind, I guess. Lucky you.” He chuckles, and knocks my forehead twice, near the stitches, with his knuckles. I groan.

“Maybe that's not so lucky,” he adds.

Next to him, a doctor lifts his stethoscope, the source of the intense cold. I shiver. It's like every sense I have has tripled its intensity. I can hear their heartbeats thundering in my ears; the machinery in the walls grates on my eardrums.

“What did you do to me?” I moan. My own voice is a roaring echo.

“Heartbeat is double the normal speed,” the doctor says. “But it appears her circulatory system has modified itself, to sustain the new rate. That would suggest cellular regeneration, or some kind of adaptation.”

A handful of doctors and nurses are gathered around me. One of them gives the lead doctor a tablet, and he plugs a few commands into it.

“What do the labs say?” Blaire asks.

“Not much,”  the doctor reports. “Patient F-36 sustained the morphogenic treatment. No visible changes, no mania or rage, like the others. Other than the vascular improvement, it's almost as if it's had no effect.”

Oh my god, I think. SHUT UP. You people are so loud.

But the rest of the staff chatters all at once.

“What?”

“No effect at all?”

“Are you SURE she didn't reject it?”

Blaire shoves the medical cart into the wall with a slam, silencing them.

“Now you people listen to me,” he utters. “If the system says she took the treatment, that's the truth. Computers don't lie. What I want to know is, can we LEARN anything from it? Corporate is gonna have my ass if I don't start showing results with the female batch.”

“The psychosomatic pregnancies aren't interesting enough?” the doctor asks, smug.

“No. We've known we can replicate pregnancies for decades now,” Blaire sighs. “I need results. Numbers, Doc. I need numbers, something positive to show. The board's already on my case about all the breakouts and system failures.”

“They find out what's causing them yet?”

Blaire's eyes narrow to slits. “No. But fucking half the asylum's gonna be out of our control at this rate.”

“At least we have the hole in the basement,” one of the others jokes. “And a good PR department.”

Hole? I wonder. In the basement? Didn't I hear something once about a lab, too?

I think I'm right, because Blaire shoots that doctor a venomous look, as if he's mentioned something inappropriate.

“So what's the plan for this one?” he asks.

“We'll have to keep her under observation,” the lead doctor suggests. He picks up a needle. “We'll use mild sedation. Then we'll start performing physical tests and-”

“SHUT UP!” I scream. I can't take it anymore. “What are you doing to us? Where is Jessie? What did you do to Dr. Hannigan?”

The doctor and a few others jump, startled.

“I forgot she's awake,” the doctor laughs. “Not for long though.”

Blaire leans forward and sticks his face in mine. He sneers, “Dr. Hannigan's taking an extended leave. Your little Bible-thumping friend has finished her treatment. She's doing just fine. It's yourself you outta be worried about.”

“I don't believe you,” I say, pulling against my restraints. “You're full of shit. This whole place is a lie! You killed him, didn't you!?”

Blaire slaps me across the face, and my body goes limp. The pain ripples across my cheek, down my neck and spine. It leaves me breathless. I feel as sensitive as...

((( _I am Mother)))_

As a newborn.

((( _Mother is me)))_

The doctor sees something, and pulls one of my eyelids up, shining a light in my eye. But whatever it is, it's gone. He puts the light away.

“I've had a stressful week,” Blaire laments. “Please don't make it worse.”

He stands up and turns to the medical staff.

“Make sure you check her restraints on your rounds. This one's tricky.”

“Will do,” the doctor says. Blaire collects his briefcase and checks the gun on his hip. He leaves in a big hurry.

The doctors also depart from the room, and I lay there for a few hours. The gap between Eddie Gluskin, discovering the journal, Ray's corpse, and now, stretches like a vast canyon in my mind. I'm on one side, and on the other side is all the answers. The parts of me I've been running from, all these years. No matter how I try, I can't jump across that void.

The journal. Lane's journal. I had it in my hands. My first and only glimpse into another side of me, and I let it fall from my fingers. Dr. Hannigan and Jessie Holmes are probably dead, or tortured, or worse. I turn my head and press my face into the gurney, wishing I could disappear.

But they're not done with me, yet. The door creaks open, and in walks the lead doctor and two assistants. He prepares an injection from a tray of sharp little instruments.

“Let me go!” I cry.

“Time to go back to Wonderland,” the doctor jokes. He lowers the needle to my arm. I shut my eyes, feel the sting as it pierces my flesh.

Nothing happens.

“Huh?”

I open my eyes.

“What the fuck? Oh, God...” the doctor chokes out. He's looking past me at something. His hand lets go, and the needle flops to the side, the tip lodged in the flesh of my inner arm.

I follow his gaze, to see someone standing in the open doorway. The lights have gone off in the hall. Whoever it is, they're standing in the dark, and no matter how hard I rove my eyes, I can't see them from my position.

“T-Trager?” one of the assistants cries. “Rick Trager?”

“Evening, buddy!” a man's voice greets.

“What are you doing?” the doctor demands. “You're not supposed to be up here!”

The cheerful voice answers, “I just got back from my accreditation. And what a whirlwind that was. But I've learned _so_ much.”

“Christ.” One of the assistants hisses into the other's ear, “How'd he escape the morphogenic engine?”

Trager sneers, “That's not really your concern, is it? I'll be taking over this practice now.”

The lead doctor inches toward an emergency button on the wall. He points at the man. “S-stay there, Trager. Don't move!”

But he steps into the room. The two assistants rush in front of me, blocking my view. Someone flicks the lights off and slams the door shut. One of the assistants screams raggedly. There's a thud as a body crumples to the floor. A few seconds later, another unbridled scream. Another thud. Wet, gurgling noises. Someone's dying breath, plugged by blood.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I start thrashing against my restraints, but it's no use. I'm stuck here, on my back, powerless.

I can barely make out the shadow of the doctor as he sneaks toward the glowing red button on the wall. He presses it with his fist. There's no alarm (a bluff?), but I hear him say,

“There's no escape, now. They're coming for you. Let me help you.”

No reply. Footsteps. A metallic snipping sound, like scissors or garden shears.

“Trager!” The doctor begs. He chokes and gags. Someone has him by the throat. “D-don't do this! I can h-help you! I can-”

“Help?” the voice mocks. “HELP? Why would I need help? Least of all, from a hack like you.”

More loud snipping. Screech of shoes, sliding across the linoleum.

“Oh God, please!” the doctor begs. “Please, no!”

“I'd say it's time-” the voice growls, much lower, more sinister.

SHHHK! A splatter as something tears, immediately followed by high-pitched screams from the doctor. Bones crack. Hot blood sprays everywhere, all over me, and I hear not one, but two things hit the floor.

Thud, thud.

“-for your resignation. No hard feelings, buddy.”


	7. Fragmented

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel escapes Trager and another Variant with some unexpected help. The two explore part of the admin block, with violent results.

The only light shines from the emergency button. Everything is crimson and black. I try to lay completely still, my animal instincts telling me if I don't move, if I keep quiet, he might go away. It's a lie, of course. Trager already knows I'm here. He's rummaging through the doctors' clothes. I can hear him removing things, putting them on.

“Amateurs, all of them,” he muses. There's a smarmy tone to his voice that reminds me of a politician. He keeps talking to himself, as if rehearsing a business pitch. “They don't even see the potential ROI on this place! But I'll change that. Mount Massive's new clinic is open for business.”

He hovers over me, fumbling at the exam light.

“Now, let's get a better look at Patient Number One.”

Fear freezes my bones. The overhead light clicks on to its dimmest setting, but it burns my retinas anyway. All I see are black dots.

“Oh?” Trager says, intrigued. “Looks like they got my memo after all. What are you doing over here, in the male ward?”

“Please,” I whimper softly. “Let me go.”

He ignores me. “I guess it doesn't matter. What's ailing you, _sweetheart?”_

Strong hands seize my arms, turning them over.

I spasm at his touch. “Don't!”

He explores the scars on my wrists with eager fingers, pressing here and there with his long, hard nails.

“Suicide? That's boring. But these are some nice, clean cuts.” He chuckles. “You were serious, weren't you?”

The black dots are gone. I can see him now, leaning over me. Cords of unnatural muscle and mummified flesh weave together on a man's frame. He's taken a surgeon's apron and wrapped it around his waist. The doctor's mask and broken glasses cover half of his face. His scraggly gray hair stops halfway up his head, as if someone tried to scalp him, and did a poor job.

And, tucked under one arm, an enormous pair of shears, sticky with blood. I shudder at the sight of them.

“Not much of a talker, are you, Number One?” he asks, disappointed. “You gotta do better than this. Let's see if we can get a few words outta you.”

He stands and walks over to the tray of tools, which has overturned and spilled on the floor. He's completely naked, save for a black apron wrapped around his front. He lifts a pair of steel surgical pliers, examining them. Puts them down. Picks up a pair of scissors.

“These should do,” he says, and starts walking back toward me. “Gotta get those stitches out, before we start.”

I don't have any stitches. They've all dissolved by now. He takes a seat again next to me.

WHAM! Something slams into the door, and I shriek. Trager's head jerks toward the noise, goggled eyes slit in annoyance.

Something is happening, outside the exam room. Some sort of commotion in the hallway. People are screaming, shouting.

“TAKE THAT, YOU BASTARDS!” a man bellows. “LET'S SEE YOU FUCK WITH ME AGAIN!”

A woman shouts as she runs by the door: “Where is security!? Where are our reinforcements!?”

A few moments later, she's answered by something unpleasant.

“No, no! Stay away from me! Don't touch me! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP!”

Several men laugh harshly. Her cries are muffled, smothered. I can only assume there's been another system failure, another breakout, and Trager is part of it.

He snips the surgical scissors in the air, and I turn my face away, shutting my eyes. I brace myself for pain.

But Trager only strokes my hair back from my forehead, almost affectionately, tracing the wound there once. Then he lifts his hand away.

“Bad luck, Number One. Looks like we'll have to put my consultation on the back burner. Here, lemme help you with that.”

He plucks the needle from my arm, and drops it to the floor with a clink. Then he says, with a touch of macabre humor, “Gonna need you nice and alert for our chat later. Wait right here for me, will you? I think I'll introduce myself to the rest of the staff.”

It's not like I have any fucking choice, but whatever. Trager puts the scissors somewhere, picks up the bone shears, opens the door and leaves, slamming it shut on his way out. I let out a sigh of relief, followed by a deep sob.

More shouts and cries of dismay from the hallway. Gunshots. It sounds like all hell is breaking loose. Everyone is breaking loose, except me.

I couldn't tell you how long I struggled with those straps. It must have been for hours. Nothing worked. I stop after a while to rest, sweating, heart pounding. How am I gonna get out of here? I have to do something, before that Trager guy returns. I don't know what a 'consultation' means, but I sure as fuck don't wanna find out.Just then, the door creaks open. No light in the hallway. My mind can't handle this level of fear. My petrified soul feels like it's about to rip free from my body.

But it isn't Trager. A male patient wanders in. He has the look of an Auschwitz victim, the way his eyes are sunken, how his uniform hangs off him like a scarecrow. In his right hand, a boxcutter flashes, and my stomach drops. He shuts the door, plunging the room in the bloody dark again.

I close my eyes tight and pretend to be dead.

“Present,” the patient mumbles, stumbling closer. “They got me...a birthday present!”

A rank smell reaches my nose. I've smelled it before, living on the streets among the homeless. It's the stench of tooth decay. A LOT of tooth decay. It wafts over from him in a cloud that would have made Satan's eyes water.

His fingers scramble over the gurney, brushing against me. I try to find my voice, but it's fled to Bermuda or someplace nice and far from here.

“I want to open...my present!” the man giggles. He fumbles at the restraint on my left wrist. The boxcutter tip brushes against my skin for a moment, not hard enough to draw blood. I say nothing, do nothing. His breath hits me in a fresh wave and I feel my stomach twist on itself. I retch into my right shoulder.

“It's my birthday,” he says, finishing the first restraint. “And I want to open...my present! Hee hee.”

I start tearing at the restraint on my right hand while he works on my left ankle. Left ankle and right hand are soon freed. I sit up, blood rushing to my head, and start on my right ankle as the patient does the same. We nearly smack heads, and I get a good look at his face.

His lips have rotted away. What remains of his teeth poke out like little tombstones in a graveyard. His smile IS a graveyard, a remnant of what once was. There's no intelligence in his beady eyes, no comprehension. Only emptiness.

“No!” he shouts suddenly, smacking my hand off the belt. I hiss with pain. My right hand bleeds from a thin gash where he cut me.

“No! I get to do it! It's MY birthday!” he insists.

“All right,” I relent, rubbing my bloody hand on my clothes. “All right, go ahead. Sorry.”

He bends over my right ankle, taking an unusual amount of time now. As he works, he doesn't notice the door to the room opening. The lights click on, revealing a mural of gore and death on the floor. I don't care about that. My eyes go wide for a second, then I smile like the biggest dope on the planet.

In steps Ellen Rivers, the sleeves to her jumpsuit rolled up, shoulders out. She has her arms folded across her chest. She winks at me, and sits on the gurney, crossing one leg over the other. She watches the patient struggle with the last restraint.

“It helps if you don't fuck it up,” she suggests, reaching for the belt.

“Get away!” he snarls, his rotted teeth alarmingly close to the skin of my ankle. He points at Ellen with the boxcutter. “This is MY present!”

The blade whistles through the air. Ellen's hand catches his—she has much better reflexes than I do—and she wrenches it free, slicing his fingers in the process.

“Git outta here, before I get mad,” Ellen says. She twirls the boxcutter in her hand.

“You cut me!” he moans, holding his injured hand, drool rolling down his chin. “On my birthday! I'll KILL YOU!”

He gnashes his disgusting teeth and lunges toward us. But Ellen's had enough of his bullshit. She lashes out with the blade and, in one smooth, sweeping motion, slits his jugular. He falls down, gurgling, joining the pile of Trager's kills on the floor.

Ellen rips the last restraint free and kicks the patient's body. “Happy fuckin' birthday.”

Then, to my shock, she looks me right in the eyes with her black shark ones.

“What're you waitin' for, dumbass? Let's get outta here!”

It's not worth shredding my brain over, not now. I force the thoughts away, shutting my eyes. Rapid flashes explode in the backs of my eyelids (((unsettling shapes/ever-evolving fractals that never quite fade/a bloody hand trailing off a gurney being loaded into an ambulance a child's screams/my hand clutching a pair of scissors stabbing at a pregnant woman/a desert moon hanging above rocky cliffs bodies strewn in the sand))).

When I open them, Ellen is still there.

“You can see me?” I breathe. “I'm real to you?”

She rubs her eyes, then rolls them. “Course I can see you. What happened just now? You have a seizure?”

“N-no. Never mind that. You've never spoken to me before!” I exclaim, shocked.

“I never had a need to. Not 'til now,” Ellen says, with a hint of bitterness.

“How is this possible? Was it the treatment?”

She shakes her head. “That scissor guy is probably still around. We gotta get someplace safe. Come on.”

I stick close to her and follow her into the hall. Her hair is still blonde instead of silver, like mine. And she's taller than me, more muscular. Is that how she sees herself, how I see her, or neither?

Ellen turns to look back at me. “Don't scream.”

She leads me around a corner. Body parts litter the floor and walls like Halloween decorations: a foot here, a head there, over there, a pile of intestines, strung like Christmas lights. I might have been able to convince myself they were fake, if it wasn't for the smell.

I manage to keep my composure as we navigate the field of viscera, the disassembled remains of people, alive only a few hours ago. My foot slides from under me as I misstep, landing on someone's liver. My gorge rises in my throat. I've seen and experienced some awful things in my life, but nothing like this. This is otherworldly. And the smell: a mixed bag of metal, sweat, and the contents of people's bowels, puddling between cracked tiles.

“Who the fuck did this? Trager?” I whisper, shaking blood and something purple off my sneaker.

“Who knows,” Ellen tells me, in a low voice. “The male ward's been gettin' worse n' worse, and now it looks like it's finally gone to complete shit.”

Male ward? That's right, Trager said something about it, too. I look around, but I don't recognize my surroundings.

“How do you know where we are?” I ask. Something soft brushes my ankle. I've stepped on a woman's blood-soaked hair and tangled my foot in it. Flies have laid maggots on the side of her face. One eye stares up at the ceiling. Her pants and underwear have been removed, shirt pulled up over her breasts, purple hand prints on her neck. Her right nipple's been hacked off and placed on her swollen lips.

 “FUCK!” I shout. “Why?!”

“Shhh! Do you want the crazies that did this to hear us!?”

We pass right by the courtyard, where the promise of clean mountain air calls like a siren, but Ellen's leading me back down another hallway: deeper into the asylum. I don't hesitate, eager to be away from the bodies. We pass a sign that reads 'Admin Block', and get to a door that's been boarded up. A hole's been punched into the wood, near the floor. Ellen ducks into the hole and crawls through, and I follow.

I stand up. We're in a break room, with a flat screen TV that's on a channel full of static. Someone's coffee cup sits on a table, full. Ellen goes over to it and gulps it down. She picks up a half-eaten doughnut and shoves it down her throat.

It's been days since I've eaten. I can taste what she tastes, feel the chewed up dough slide down my throat, the feeling of fullness. It's as if we exist at the same time. And I'm remembering it.

We're standing with a table between us, staring at one another. I take a seat, and Ellen goes over to the couch, leans against the back.

“What the FUCK is happening? How can I see you now?” I ask her. “Give me some answers, Ellen.”

She folds her arms, coffee mug clutched in her hands. The red printed text on it reads: I <3 MONDAYS.

“How the hell should I know, sis? I guess that treatment knocked a screw or two loose.” She raps the side of her head with her scabbed knuckles. “For us to see each other like this. One second I was asleep, in limbo, whatever, the next I heard ya screamin' and felt this. Knew I had to step in and do somethin'.”

She raises her hand, to show it's been cut, too. Same place as mine.

I ask, “Do you remember what they did to us? I heard one of the doctors say Trager escaped something called a 'morphogenic engine'.”

I remember the flashing, behind my eyelids again (((moths fluttering toward gray light))). I blink the images away. I focus on what Ellen's saying.

She says, “But we don't look all fucked up like him.”

“Yeah, the doctors even said they weren't sure if it worked.”

Ellen scowls. “Who cares about that? All that matters is that we git outta here!”

“Now that I can agree with.”

I nurse my injured hand, tucking it under my other arm. Ellen's hand drips freely on the carpet. She doesn't seem to mind it.

“I have a question for you, first,” she says, raising her chin. “Did Grace talk to you?”

I feel a stab of anxiety. “H-how do you know about Grace?”

Ellen's shark eyes are impassive. One fingernail traces the rim of the coffee mug, slowly.

I rub my forehead, remembering Trager's touch, and shiver. “Yes, she spoke to me when I was...when we were...in the engine.”

“What did she tell you?”

“She told me that there are five halves. Myself, you, her, Lane, and Nat. And that-”

 I stop. Ellen leans forward. “And WHAT?”

I remember Grace's words. There is another. And she wants us all dead. But something tells me not to tell Ellen. I'm not sure I can trust her yet.

I finish, “-that some of you kept journals, and I need to find them.”

“That's all?”

“Yes.”

Ellen slaps her thigh. The frozen, placid expression cracks, a wide grin spreads across her face.

“Good! I want to find 'em too,” she tells me, with a flippant laugh.

“I DID find one. Lane's,” I say, clenching my hands into fists. “But I dropped it when they captured me. I have to go back to the female ward and look for it.”

Ellen's grin wavers. She stalks over to me with that jungle-cat gait of hers. Her fingernail clinks against the coffee mug.

“You don't like my idea?” I ask.

“No. I don't much like headin' back into that fairy Eddie's territory,” she answers. “He's a rough one to deal with. But that Lane, she's good at keepin' secrets. And she's awful creative. Probably got every nook n' cranny to this place mapped out. She would know a way outta here. Lord knows, I tried to find one.”

 “While I was asleep?” I shudder.

“Yeah. I tried chattin' up the guards, seducin' em, givin' em the old truck stop routine. None of 'em were interested. I guess I ain't got it like I used to, or maybe they're all a buncha knob gobblers like Eddie,” Ellen glowers. “That Trevor one seemed interested, but he kept askin' for Lane. So one night I get fed up and just run for it. I get as far as the main lobby, but that place is swarmin' with guards. They got this place outfitted like a Vietnam bunker or some shit. Them boys stuck me with a dart and took me back to the female ward before I could take one step outside.”

That explains the bruises, and the fatigue.

“We could try and get out that way again,” I suggest. “Maybe the guards left.”

“Maybe.”

Ellen brings the mug to her lips and gulps the rest of the coffee. I can feel the effect the caffeine is having on her (((us))).

“Can't hurt to look,” I press, massaging my hand where I've (((we've))) been cut.

“The lobby's between us n' the female ward. Suppose we can get out. You still wanna go find that journal?”

I purse my lips. Dr. Hannigan risked his life to tell me about it. Jessie's probably dead because she helped me look for it. Do I let it go so easily, risk going back to how things were? On the run, forever looking over my shoulder, trying to avoid the messes others have made?

The TV hisses static, flickers a couple of times, then shuts off.“I don't know,” I answer honestly. “Would Lane and the others talk to me, like you are now? If we escaped?”Ellen throws her head back and laughs. Laughs, until my face burns.

“Sister, you ain't hearin' from anybody unless they want you to. What we're havin' right now is sorta an emergency meeting. And the others ain't invited.”

“But maybe the treatment-” I start, and Ellen flings the mug. It smashes into the wall next to me, breaking into shards. Her face has gone an ugly shade of red.

“FUCK the treatment, y'hear me?” she yells. “It didn't do NOTHIN' but make us worse, understand? You ain't ever hearin' from them other chicks. They don't wanna talk to you, or me. They're just concerned about themselves. I say we head for the lobby, and if the gettin's good, we get on outta here and leave that journal behind. Deal?”

She has a point. This may be the only chance we get. Fuck it, I think. The asylum is hell on earth. I'll find a shrink like Dr. Hannigan, someone who can help me. And in the meantime I'm gonna write a VERY negative Yelp review of this place.

“Deal!” I exclaim, standing up so fast my chair falls over.

Ellen smiles wryly. “Then let's get on with it.”

We leave the safety of the break room, and head back into the chaotic maze of the asylum. There's no light, except for a few emergency switches, and it slows us down. But Ellen knows enough from her nightly wanderings to point us toward the center of the Admin Block, where the main entrance would be.

As I follow her, we pass even more bodies, both patients and guards. Some of them have had their necks twisted. One headless corpse is thrown over the back of a chair, the head missing. No way a human being could have done it.

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper. “What did this?”

I don't have to wait long to find out.

“Almost there,” Ellen says, as we reach a door with a frosted glass window. I can see a shadow on the other side.

“Ellen, don't!” I warn her, but it's too late.

She opens the door.

A massive...thing...is on the other side, its back turned to us. At first I think it's a hairless ape standing on two legs, but then I spot the army fatigues, a pair of bloodstained boots, and chains. It turns, and I can see it's a man. A man with a permanent snarl on his face, lips peeled away, just like (((the woman in the white dress))).

“SHIT!” Ellen screams. She slams the door shut and locks it. Looks at me. “Did that just happen? Is that thing real?”

“CUNT PIGS!” a deep voice roars from the other side. “Sows of the enemy!”

“Real enough,” I say, blinking. “I suggest we run now.”

His fist smashes through the glass pane on the door. One meaty arm flops into view, gropes for the doorknob with a hand the size of a frying pan. Ellen and I bolt down the hallway. I try and slow down for her, but she keeps falling behind.

“Goddamn smoker's lungs,” she swears, wheezing.

“Come on!” I shout over my shoulder.

I run through an open door, into the next hall. Ellen jogs after me, coughing. Each time I dare to look back, she stumbles.

I'm forced to stop. I can hear the thing's pounding footsteps, the chains on his legs rattling.

“Ellen! He's coming!”

“Keep goin'!” she wheezes, doubled over. She's way on the other end of the hall, by the door. “Keep goin' til you hit the main lobby!”

“What about you?!”

She winks at me, and gives a thumbs up. Then the door explodes off its hinges, slamming into her. She slams into the wall, hard, and collapses.

“No!” I scream, but it's too late. The thing takes a big, lumbering step into the hall, landing on top of the door, and on top of-

Nothing. Ellen's body isn't there.

“The red...is calling!” the brute howls.

He starts double-timing after me, his footfalls shaking the walls. I turn and run, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps. There's a door with a bunch of furniture stacked in front of it. I screech to a halt and start scrambling over tables, chairs, desks, boxes. A nail stabs into my left shin, but I barely feel it. There's an opening at the top, a flat piece of sheet metal to grab onto. I hoist myself up and over, just as the thuds and crashes reach a crescendo below.

No sooner do I drag my feet into the hole after me, than I hear: “Little pig! I'll rip your belly open!”

But he's too large to come after me. I lower myself down on the other side, safe, for now. I'm on a balcony overlooking the lobby and main desk. There are computers, and offices behind glass walls. One of the computers is on; I can see its blue desktop from above. I find the stairs, twist down them like a kid on Christmas, and shoot past the elevator.

No guards on site. Everything here is mostly untouched. I'm not sure if I should be relieved or not.

I crawl over to the reception desk, afraid to stand. I pop my head up once, making sure the thing is still gone, that no one's watching. Then I turn to the computer. Someone has left an email open:

To: Mount Massive Employee Directory

From: Security@Murkoffcorp.us.com

Date: August 29th, 2013

Subject: ***ATTENTION ALL MOUNT MASSIVE STAFF!***

To All Onsite Employees:

If you are still working, you have until 10:00 p.m., MST, to vacate the asylum grounds. Lockdown protocols are scheduled after 10:00 p.m. All entrances and exits will be automatically closed and secured via armed reinforcement. If you are not off the grounds at the time, you WILL be locked in. If this occurs, you are advised to shelter in a safe space, until the lockdown has been lifted.

Do not attempt to flee across the grounds or through secured entrances. Murkoff and its subsidiaries are not responsible for any injuries or death sustained from any attempted escape or tampering with the security measures.

Thank you for your cooperation.

-Agent Mike Starger, Chief of Security

 

The clock on the start bar reads 12:42 am. I check the calendar: it's August 30th, 2013. So much for that. I minimize the email. There's an open chat log. I scroll to the start of the conversation:

 

Larry: u still on?

James: yeah. Shit's going crazy over here. Probably another breakout from below. Tactical is on it. How are things in prison block?

Larry: Got a lot of guys on patrol. More dudes from Tactical, lots of German accents and some Russian. I think we'll be ok for now.

James: Wish I could say the same.

Larry: Wtf is happening over in Admin? Heard something about a priest.

James: Father Martin. he's been encouraging the patients to act out.

Larry: Why don't staff put a bullet in his head?

James: They can't find him. Or they don't want to.

Larry: They aren't paying us enough for this shit lol. never heard of working conditions like this & I know guys that were in Afghanistan. First the Variants escape, now this Martin guy starts a rebellion. What is this, fucking Star Wars?

James: I wish. Then I could at least poke Leia, lol. Having a bit of a dry spell atm with the ladies.

Larry: You could always ask to transfer to the female ward, haha.

James: Haha yeah right. You didn't hear?

Larry: Hear what?

James: The female ward's completely quarantined now. No one's allowed over there.

Larry: Shit! Was it Gluskin?

James: Nah, he's been moved elsewhere. It's Martin's people, those women.

Larry: The women are still there?

James: Yeah. They killed some of our guys, some patients too. Blaire says someone's sabotaging his pet project. Rumor is Murkoff's cutting that part of the program loose.

Larry: Idk man. I think I might quit. The money's good, but this is starting to scare the shit outta me.

Larry: u there man?

James: jhf fdjjkll,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Larry: U jerkin off over there or what?

Larry: James? U on?

Larry: damn it

 

I look down. There's a big splotch of blood on the ',' key. A pair of bloody shoe prints, leading to the office on my right. I have no desire to follow them. Instead I run over to the front doors and push. They're deadbolted. I shove my shoulder into them anyway, but it's useless. Even that brute upstairs couldn't Hulk-punch his way through them. I try the windows, but they're all made of thick, bulletproof glass, or covered by iron bars.

“Shit!” I kick the doors, over and over, and sink to my knees when I've had enough. Ellen is gone. The creatures are stirring from the woodwork. I think I'm really going crazy now, and I'm stuck in this place. Maybe I should forget about the journal, forget about escaping, find a hole to crawl in, hoard some provisions. Sleep this off. Hope my other halves get the same message.

“Mmmm mmmm hmmm-mmmm mm.”

Someone's singing, above me. Eddie? I snap my head upward.

“Ahh, the multi-voiced prophet!” Father Martin hails. His spidery hands grip the edges of the balcony, his ghastly face hovering in the shadows like a demented moon, with two eyes for craters. “Do not despair, my child!”

I stand and yell, “What do you want?!”

“Only to bring good tidings. Your friend, Jessie Holmes, has joined us in our pilgrimage to paradise,” he cries. “Praise God! He has chosen her to be the lamb!”

A groan of realization escapes my lips. Jessie's still alive!

“What did you do to her?” I shout at him, start running for the stairs. “Where is she?”

Father Martin smiles, retreats from the balcony.

“Come! To the fountain! There shall be a birth! And then a baptism in blood and fire!”

With those words, he slips into the shadows.“Birth? You mean Jessie? Stop! Wait!”

By the time I get up the steps, he's gone. My lungs are on fire, my legs won't stop shaking.

“Okay,” I say, to nobody in particular, nodding. I look at a crucifix hanging from the wall. I must be near a chapel. Somehow, I knew I would be bound for this path. Hoping for a miracle was too much to ask. And I must do this alone.

“Hang on Jessie,” I whisper, starting down the corridor. “I'm coming for you.”        


	8. Burnt Offerings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her mental state crumbling, Mel rushes to the female ward to help a friend. She discovers the gruesome truth to what Father Martin and his 'apostles' have been up to while she was away.

“God,” I say under my breath. I've followed the signs and reached the edge of the admin block. I'm staring out a door, at nothing but fog. The mountain air does little to calm my nerves. The wind cries a hollow, lonesome note through the trees and grass. The mist has enveloped everything. I can't see three feet in front of me. But in order to reach the female ward, I have to walk through a stretch of the courtyard.

Anything could be lurking here. I swallow, take a deep breath, and take the plunge.

It's like diving under a sea of gray. The knee-high grass swishes against my legs, and my pants are quickly soaked through with dew. The same fate awaits my sneakers, which are already starting to tear apart. I make the decision to take them off and tie them around my neck. Better barefoot than to get blisters. I learned that the hard way, living on the road, and my feet are calloused enough to handle it.

Come to the fountain, Father Martin said. That should await me on the other side. What did they mean by baptism? And was Jessie pregnant now, too? This is all Murkoff's idea of a sick joke, isn't it? How could they play with people's lives like this?

Swishing in the grass, to my left. I don't turn to look. I halt in place, still as stone. The swishing stops. I start walking.

_Swish swish swish._

I stop again. It stops. I'm far too tired and angry and scared to think it's an echo. The dead grass is high where I'm standing, so I crouch. It covers me almost up to the top of my head. I reach out with an arm and move some of the plants, snapping their stems, making noise.

 _Swish swish swish._ Coming closer. My breath catches in my throat: I can see the outline of someone, in the gray. A pair of luminous, red eyes wink at me for a second, and vanish. I can't say why, but I feel that it's a female presence, though there's nothing to indicate such. I make more noise, but whoever it is has caught on to my little trick. Neither of us moves.

My nerve starts to crumble. It's waiting for me, the way a hunter waits for a deer to spring from the thicket. As slow as I can, I rise to my full height. The shadow doesn't move. I angle my body in what my best guess is the direction of the female ward. Then I start tearing through the grass.

_Swishswishswishswish._

Oh god, it's chasing me. I pump my legs harder, zigzagging a little, trying to throw it off. Light up ahead: yellow, faint, outdoor emergency spotlights. I can make out windows, see the entrance to the female ward. Not much farther. The fountain should be on my right, any minute now.

((( _CAUGHT YOU IN MY WOODS!_ an old woman cackles _)))_

Something rips at my shirt, jerking me back. I choke out a startled cry and fall, landing hard on my backside.

“No!” I thrust my hands out, ready to strike whatever's attacking me, twisting my head to face my assailant. But there's no one here.

“Oh, no,” I moan. “No no no.”

Was it my imagination? It couldn't be. I feel the back of my shirt, but there's no rips or tears. It's  in one piece.

“Ellen?” I call into the gray. “Was that you?”

No answer. The dead grass sways in the breeze, whispering softly. A moth flutters in front of me briefly, before disappearing into the mist. Christ, am I making up my own enemies now? Somehow, that thought's more unnerving than the real thing.

The fountain's tucked into a walled-in area outside the female ward. The mist has thinned enough here for me to see it. I walk right up to the edge, but there's no one here, either. Only sound is the trickle of water. It sounds so nice, so normal. Hypnotic, even.

I start walking around the edge of it, trailing my hand along the cool, wet stone. I run my tongue across my dry, cracked lips. It would be nice to dunk my head in and drink my fill, but I don't fancy a bout of gastroenteritis, so that's not gonna happen. My finger brushes against a piece of paper, folded and tucked between two blocks.

I take it out and unfold it. It's torn from a children's coloring book page, written over in ink, by a shaky hand:

_Sister Madge says the time of reckoning against our captors is soon nigh. She's been so good to us. Father Martin says she is a true Mary Magdalene. They spend an awful lot of time alone together, and I think mayhaps she receives God's gospel quite often from him. He's been trying to minister that awful Jessie Holmes, too. I've seen him come down from her room on the third floor. Father says she has demons that must be extracted, before she can help us._

_She's been chosen to deliver the Lamb. I guess I can't be too envious, seeing as I'm expecting a little one of my own. It's been over forty years since I gave birth, and I already went through the change of life, but the Lord has breathed fearsome new vigor into my womb and loins. I can feel the baby kick even now, so strong, it must be a boy. A little baby boy for me to love and care for again. I couldn't have asked for a better gift than that._

_Sally says she can feel hers kicking, too. I think we're all about due at the same time. It'll be any day now._

_I best finish up here, as Madge is gathering us together again. We're gonna drive out that Eddie Gluskin for good, send him to the Vocational Ward where he belongs. Father Martin says he must live to perform his miracle works on the Sodomites, but so long as Eddie's here, he is a threat to the flock._

_Maybe we should let HIM have Jessie, if he's wanting a bride so bad. I would gladly give my son to the Lord in her stead._

_-Lucy_

It's petty, I know, but every time I think I'm losing it, something like this makes me feel better about myself.

I tuck the note back into place and go inside, listening for the Apostles, for orderlies, anybody. The ward has changed since I've been here last. It was never a luxury resort, but the level of ruin before me is disheartening. Most of the windows are broken or boarded up. The paintings on the walls, slashed and torn. The checkered tile is streaked with dirt and blood. Trash litters the floor. Only a few overhead lights shine down, casting drab pools of milky white light. The pungent odor of urine and decay fills my nostrils.

I stoop to pick up a child's doll, abandoned in a hurry. Its hair has been torn out. I throw it to the side, shivering.

A party of rats flees as I approach a pile of trash. If only I could transform into one of them, I could pass through the walls, up the pipes, unnoticed. It might be better to be a rat, in this place.

“Hang on, Jessie,” I breathe. “A little longer. I have to check something first.”

I run down the hall leading to the barricaded stairwell. Ray's body has been moved, but the blood is still there, as is the writing on the wall, that disturbing message left by Gluskin.

My journal is nowhere to be found. Jessie's Bible is gone, too.

Fuck. All right, just because it's gone doesn't mean it's been destroyed. Someone's probably tucked it away in storage, with other patient belongings. But first, Jessie. I hoist myself over the door and inch across the ply board platform. I have far less strength than I did last time, and when I land on the other side, I stumble and fall into the stairs, cracking a tooth.

I ignore the throbbing pain in my jaw, spitting pink, and head up to the third floor. I pause before the door and touch the handle, the hairs prickling on the back of my neck.

(((Don't. Wait! Listen.)))

I spin around.

“Who said that?” I whisper. It sounded like...

“Lane?”

Fiery light on the other side of the door. I duck into the corner and crouch down. Someone strides by the doors. The light vanishes, and I crawl over to them. I press on the handle and push the door out a little.

Someone stalking down the hallway, garbed in black robes. A nun?

The figure turns to the side a little, and I see a swollen lump under the clothes. It's one of the pregnant Apostles.

“Blessed are the children of God, the ones who...” the Apostle murmurs, holding a candle to their breast. They keep walking.

I wait until they're no longer in sight, and tread down the hall. Candles have been lit along the way, red and white pillars of wax. Messages, painted on the walls, in blood. Here and there, a dead guard or orderly, their bodies arranged in mock-crucifixion.

WALRIDER, one mural says.

My head starts to ache again. What's a Walrider? Or did they misspell something? As I pass a door, I pause, thinking I've heard a noise. I press my ear to it and listen.

“Don't cry, Delores. This is God's plan for you!” someone soothes. “Rejoice in your suffering.”

Delores moans, and murmurs feverishly in Spanish. A dreadful curiosity overcomes me.

“Por favor,” she pleads, through her sobs. “No puedo hacer esto. No puedo...”

I grasp the handle and turn it, cracking the door. I dare to look into the little sliver, inside.

Delores lays on a bed, a woman in nun's clothing sitting next to her. Delores' shirt is thrown up to her breasts, her swollen belly bulges like a purple tumor. The Apostle dips her fingers into a bowl and slathers a salve between Delores' legs, singing as she works.

“Hush now,” she coos. “It's not so bad. Remember what Christ endured for us, on the cross.”

I open the door a little wider, mortified. Delores winces and thrusts against the bed, her face contorting in pain. Her eyes snap open. She spots me. A jet of yellow pus and blood shoots from between her legs, soaking the sheets.

“Mátame!” she says, between screams. “Mátame!”

Kill me.

The Apostle's hooded head swivels.

“The many-voiced prophet!” she exclaims. She snatches up a knife from the side table.

I slam the door shut and run for it. Reach the next door, jammed. And the next, also locked. I round a corner and try one more, as the Apostle closes the distance between us.

This one opens, and I burst inside, slamming it shut and locking it. Listening, I wait until the Apostle's footsteps are gone. I'm alone for now, and safe.

I scan my surroundings for threats. I'm in a dusty old bathroom that hasn't been updated since the 60's. There are old-fashioned tubs lined in a row, a few outfitted with stirrups and a handicapped seat, which hangs from the ceiling. The room is filled with the drone of buzzing flies. They seem excited. Something in the tubs, keeping them busy.

I approach one and look inside. It's as if someone's taken human meat, put it through a grinder, and dumped it inside. The sickening sweet smell of female blood reaches my nose. There's an alien, sac-type thing on top of the gore. A placenta?

It's unbroken, still whole.

I step away, retching. But I have to know more. I have to know if there are actually babies inside these old women. Swallowing my disgust, I approach the tub again. Using my bare hands, I lift the sac and rummage through the mess. There are no baby parts, no umbilical cord, only shredded tissue, veins, blood. No sign of a real pregnancy, like the doctors mentioned.

Unless, of course, they're taking the babies somewhere, doing something with them. But why? I don't think I'll ever know the answer. How can there be a logical explanation for this madness?

I run to the sinks on the wall opposite form the tubs. My hands claw at the taps, twisting, until one of them works. Clear water streams from the faucet. There's a mirror on the wall, and I get a glimpse of myself for the first time in a while. My sleeveless patient uniform is stained shades of brown, red, and black. I'm still coated in the arterial spray from the murdered doctor. My green eyes are bloodshot, my shoulder-length silver hair matted with slime. The tattoos on my arms and hands are smeared over with filth.

Clean. I have to get clean. I wash my hands in scalding hot water, sticking my head under the faucet, rinsing my hair. I bring my shin up where the nail stabbed me and rinse that, too. Then I lower my face into the stream, scrubbing away days and days of dirt and chaos. I grab handfuls of paper towels and wash the rest of me, as best as I can.

Hands grab me by the shoulders, fingers digging into my flesh, spinning me around.

“Mel,” a young woman says, standing before me. Her angled cat's eyes stare into mine, her wet, black hair curtaining her face. “Watch out.”

She disappears.

I lean back against the sink, grabbing it for support. My hair drips all over the floor. There's a puddle a few feet in front of me, too, where she stood.

“Lane?” I croak.

The door I came in through creaks in response. I run for the opposite end, toward the other exit, and slip into the hall. An Apostle steps into the bathroom, shutting the door behind them. It's then I have an idea.

The floor is loose beneath my bare feet. I crouch and yank the entire board free. I creep back down to the other door, open it, to see the Apostle's back turned to me.

Sneaking closer, I raise the plank, waiting. Closer.

The Apostle spins, an old woman's face howling at me, like a witch from my nightmares. Betsy Roth's eyes are wide, spellbinding, her gray hair a tangled mass falling from under her hood.

Out of sheer terror, I slam the plank against her head, breaking it in two. She sprawls on the floor. A trickle of blood leaks from her temple, but she's still breathing. I rip off her robes and put them on, pull the hood over my head, and run out of there.

I don't know where to go anymore, and I'm in shock, my breath staggering in my lungs. I've reached the end of the third floor. There's no where else to go, and still no sign of Jessie. I check all of the rooms and empty offices one last time. Makeshift altars have been set up throughout, macabre messages painted on the walls. Offerings to their strange god. Empty beds, some stained with puddles of blood. The candles lend an overpowering warmth, and I begin to sweat in my robes.

 _Click!_ A door unlocks and opens somewhere.

“Sister!” someone hails me, waving out of one of the rooms. “Come!”

I freeze, and make sure my hood is in place. It's dark enough in here that my face is cast in shadow, and I pray it will be enough.

“Come!” the Apostle calls, growing more impatient. “Hurry now!”

No choice but to obey. I join my hands together in prayer, as I've seen the others do, and approach a middle-aged woman with red hair. It's Sarah, the one who visited Dr. Hannigan after me. Sarah the Scratcher. And her hands are unbound, clutching at a lantern, the nails long and sharp.

“You see any sign of the prophet?” she asks me.

It takes me a second to realize she's talking about me. I shake my head.

Sarah grimaces, showing broken jack-o'-lantern teeth. “You just let us know if you do. She must be caught and brought to Father Martin.”

I nod once.

Sarah the Scratcher leads me into a large room, where several pillars support the ceiling. Boxes and wooden pallets have been stacked high in the center. There are lights from hundreds of candles shining in the dark. I count at least three-dozen Apostles, gathered around the pile of junk. Then I spot the red gasoline containers.

Not a pile of junk. A pyre.

I stand next to Sarah, joining the circle of the faithful, keeping my head bowed. Some of the women are praying under their breath, but I can't make out the words. They're speaking in some demonic language, in tongues. Half of them have swollen bellies, and they shift on their feet from the weight of them. A few sit on the floor, unable to stand.

“My sisters!” Madge's gruff words erupt from the doorway. Four male patients are carrying her on a makeshift gurney. She has grown so fat, so swollen in her pregnancy, that she can no longer support herself, a great toad of a woman.

“Listen to my words!” she orders. The group falls silent. The room is so big and so dark, I feel like I'm in a cavern.

Her servants set her down next to the pyre. They retreat from the room for a moment, before dragging in another, thinner woman. This one is also heavily pregnant. She is gagged and bound with ropes like a freshly tied hog.

“The beast has stolen our chosen one!” Madge proclaims. She points to the woman, who slumps against her handlers. “Sister Lucy was seen letting the menace into our midst! The demon who hunts for a mate!”

It's the woman who wrote the note by the fountain, I realize. The Apostles spit and moan with rage. One of them walks up to Lucy and kicks her in the head. Lucy goes face down on the floor, until the handlers hoist her up again. They take her over to the pyre and tie her ropes to the central pillar.

“Sister Lucy, you have angered Father Martin. You have angered God himself!” Madge cries. “But lo, the Lord is ever-merciful. He has spoken to Father Martin, who in turn spoke unto me. In order to purify your soul of your crime, it is God's command that you burn.”

Lucy moans into the cloth gag. A dark bruise has already blossomed on the skin of her bald head.

“You child will burn too. It is God's plan,” Madge hisses, with a warped smile.

"Mmmmph!" Lucy screams through her gag. The others chant over her lamentations.

“God's final word!”

“It's God's plan!”

“Trust in the Lord!”

“Trust in the Walrider!”

“The Walrider!'

“THE WALRIDER!”

The servants lift Lucy's robes, exposing her pubic area and mottled belly. They take the gasoline containers and start throwing liquid on the wood, coating it. Madge pulls a dagger from the sweaty depths of her bosom and hands it to a servant.

“Before we begin, there is one final matter to address,” Madge says. I realize, too late, that her beady little eyes are staring at me.

From behind, someone seizes my shoes around my neck, twisting the laces tight. In my haste to put on the robes, I forgot about them. I fight against my assailant, but they've pulled the laces taut, cutting off my air supply. My eyes feel like they're popping out of my skull. Choking, I'm lowered to the ground, supernovas exploding in my vision. Someone removes the hood from my head.

Astonished gasps from the Apostles.

“The silver-haired messenger! Hand of God! Liberator of servants!” one of the male patients babbles. I keep getting more nicknames in this place.

“Bring the many-voiced prophet to me!” Madge barks. Two Apostles tighten their grip on me and drag me toward her. The shoe laces cut into my neck, but I can breathe shallowly again.

I am set down before Madge's hulking frame. Her body odor assaults me worse than a physical blow. There's a rotting undertone to it that makes my head spin, as if I've just huffed petroleum.

“Witness!” she tells me, pointing toward the pyre. “Witness the power of our Lord. Relieve Sister Lucy of her undeserved burden. Burn her!”

The servants take candles and lower them to the pyre. A flame jumps to life, swelling into a roaring inferno in seconds. The brightness and heat of it astonish me, and the crowd steps back. Before the flames reach the center, one of the Apostles takes a dagger and slits Lucy's belly open, disemboweling her, spilling the contents onto the trash heap.

I open my mouth to scream, but can't. All I can manage are gagging noises.

Something wriggles in the pile of tissue and fluid. A tiny, black, clawed hand, like a bird's talon, pops up, reaching toward the ceiling. It isn't human.

“Oh fuck,” I rasp. “Oh God. Oh my God.”

The servant leaves Lucy, now dead from blood loss or fainted, I can't tell. The flames spread, lapping up the sides of the pillar. Oily black smoke fills the room. The Apostles have opened all the windows, but that only lets in more air, feeding the fire.

“Come!” Madge cries. “This is only the beginning.”

An Apostle pins my arms behind my back. They pull me up to my feet.

“Only the beginning!” some of the women chant.

As they lead me out the room, I turn and look back over my shoulder. The pyre is burning in full now, no sign of Lucy, or the thing that came out of her.

I must have imagined it.

I must be dreaming. Someone, please, wake me up.


	9. A Lost Lamb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Father Martin entreats with Mel. She sets out to fulfill her part of the deal, and learns disturbing new details about the security failures and breakouts. Gluskin traps her in the vocational block, but once again she receives help from an 'old friend'.

The Apostles rush out of the building like ants, as the top floor goes up in flames. Tongues of fire slither from the windows. Those who cannot run are carried, including me, out the main doors, back into the foggy summer night. They regroup around the fountain, where Father Martin waits for us. Some male patients attend his side, including two muscular men armed with huge knives. They appear to be twins, as naked as the day they were born. Their cro magnon heads and squashed faces suggest low intelligence, but then one of them observes, as we approach,

“Look. The one who escaped the doctor.”

“This one perplexes us,” says the other.

“This one perplexes herself.”

“Perhaps Father will let us hunt her.”

“She is not yours to hunt,” Father Martin interrupts their little dialogue. He strides over to me, and gestures to the burning third floor. The orange-yellow glow of the fire reflects off his papery skin and eyes, like some kind of wax doll.

“Witness!” he commands. “It is only the beginning. Soon, the Walrider will be freed from his prison. But first we must deliver the Lamb unto him, and give him strength!”

“You're crazy,” I rasp, too weak to shout. “You're all FUCKING nuts.”

“Father Martin ain't the one with a shoe necklace,” Madge snorts, fanning herself. Beads of sweat leave snail-trails down her face and neck, dampening her yellow frock. Her attendants lower her next to the priest.

“Sister Madge,” Father Martin greets.

Her pudgy, smeared lips fawn at him lovingly. I guess there's somebody for everybody in this world.

“Thank you for dealing with that traitor Lucy. Her soul will join the others, another number in God's great army.”

“Amen!” Madge praises, clapping her tiny hands together. The rolls of fat beneath her arms jiggle.

Father Martin reaches out, takes my chin in his hands, which are cold as ice. Raises my head to peer into my eyes. Madge glowers at me with green, furious envy.

Believe me, lady, when I say if you want him, you can have him.

“We are missing Jessie Holmes sorely,” Father Martin laments. “The beast, Eddie Gluskin, has taken her to his lair of sodomy and torture. She is carrying our Lamb. Her womb must not be desecrated with his foul demon seed.”

As if I need THAT kind of imagery, after the things I've seen.

“What the fuck do you want ME to do about it?”

“You must retrieve her for us,” Father Martin says. He takes something out from the depths of his robes.

It's Lane's journal. Oh, you wicked, deceptive bastard. I'll get you for this.

“I have in my hands the key to your mind,” he tells me. “Fetch Jessie, and it shall be yours.”

I gnash my teeth. “All right, I'll do it. Let me go!”

The Apostles release me. I loosen the shoe laces around my neck, and point to the twins.

“Can't I take one of them with me? At least let me have a knife!”

One of them looks at me and licks his lips. Maybe not such a good idea.

“I need them for my protection,” Father Martin says.

I sneer, “Funny, I thought that was God's job.”

He retorts by tucking Lane's journal into his robes.

“Time is not on your side,” he cautions, wagging a finger. “You have only a few hours until she starts laboring. I suggest you find her before then. You'll want to cross the drying ground to get to the vocational block.”

He points into the fog. Great, super helpful. I push my way past the Apostles, the brainwashed converts, past the invasive stares of the twins. Hard to believe they were patients like me, only a few days ago.

This time, I'm glad to be surrounded by mist. Behind me, gunfire erupts, echoing off the walls. It sounds like the Murkoff tactical teams are finally responding to the fire (and the Apostles). Maybe I'll luck out and they'll all be dead when I get back, but so far my luck's been shit.

Murkoff. Martin. I don't even know which side to root for anymore.

Team Me, that's whose team I'm on. And Team Jessie...if she's still alive. I pick up the pace, until I reach the back of administration. A brick wall separates the courtyard, with the prison building blocking access to my right. A sign posted next to a door points toward the drying ground, the one above it reads 'vocational'.

I open the door, step inside, untie my shoes (still wet, but I don't care anymore about blisters), and put them back on my feet. I shuck off the heavy, wet Apostle robes and throw them in a heap in the corner. Before I can make it down the passage, I hear boots thudding against tile.

Shit! Hide, I have to hide! I search frantically and climb into the best thing I can find: an empty barrel, once painted red, but now rusted with age. I peep through a corroded hole. Three armed, Murkoff Tactical guys in black body armor march toward me. I want to call out to them, beg them for their protection. But they aren't police, or even the military. They might even fire at me on sight. 

They stop just short of me. One of them speaks into his earpiece, “This is Unit Five, the Admin Block is secure. Come in Unit Four.”

Static. Then, a frantic man yells over the radio, “Unit Four to Unit Five! We got a bitch of a fire burning up the female ward! Requesting reinforcements!”

“Negative, Unit Four. Orders are to remain here and patrol the Admin Block. If you need help putting out the fire, radio HQ.”

“God damn it you bastards get over here righ-”

The tactical squad leader clicks off this mic and turns to the other two.

“Sounds like those boys are in for a rough night.”

Another shrugs, saying, “Tough gig. You wanna grab a coffee downstairs after this?”

“Screw that, I got a bottle of bourbon stashed in the main office. As soon as we get Walker back under control, I'll pop her open.”

“Sounds good,” the third guy says. “Gonna need a drink after dealing with Walker.”

“Where is ol' fatass anyway?”

The leader says, “Last I heard he was in the sewers, with the rest of the shit where he belongs.”

“You hear about what happened to the doctors? Heard that was some old exec's work.”

“Rick Trager, some pervert exec, got a little too handsy with an agent, and stabbed a pregnant lady with scissors. They stuffed him in a tank to cover their loose ends.” The leader chuckles, “Guess the loose end got loose.”

Murkoff eats its own, I think, marveling at the audacity of it all. Anything to protect itself. The guy who bought my mother's silence worked for these secretive, corrupt people. Now I understand why there hasn't been any government or police intervention. It has to stop.

The men start moving away from me, but I strain my ears as they leave.

“Wish we could find whoever let these freaks loose.”

“Whoever it was had access to the sub-basement levels. My bet's on someone in IT. Don't trust those nerds.”

One stops, turns to the leader. “Don't you think it could have been a patient?”

The leader lifts his mask and spits. “Fuck no! These retards, smart enough to work their way down there, let alone shut off the valves and drain the tanks? No fucking way. Cameras would've picked that up. Besides, most of their brains are fried.”

“See, that's the thing. I heard the big boss is sparing no expense to find out who it is.”

“Just check the fucking security cameras.”

“Apparently they were destroyed. Some sort of electrical malfunction. Weird black powder and shit all over the wires, like it was burned. They called in hazmats to handle it.”

“Tch. That's worrisome. I gotta get out of this chicken-shit operation.”

Curious, I strain my ears to hear more, but their voices begin to fade as they round the corner. Trager was a Murkoff employee? Someone let dangerous patients loose? Probably Father Martin or one of his goons. Who knows, maybe there's an angel working in IT, someone who doesn't like what he sees.

I climb out of the barrel and run down the length of the corridor. A right turn puts me at the doors leading to the drying ground. Back into the depths of the fog, this time surrounded by chain-link fence. At least I have the fence to guide my way. I take a second to gawk at the guard tower and prison building. Now I know why they call it Mount Massive.

Dr. Hannigan said there are thousands of patients here. The scope and scale of what Murkoff has done hits me like a brick to the cranium. If I ever get out of this place, I'm going south, somewhere in Mexico, to live out my days. Find myself a nice little beach where nothing every happens, just like that guy in _Shawshank_. Nothing ever will happen again.

Until my next blackout. Then I'm going wherever THEY want me to go. Rinse and repeat.

First Grace talks to me, then Ellen, then Lane. What the fuck did that treatment do to us? You won't find me rushing back into the arms of the scientists for thirds, that's for sure.

I reach the entrance to the vocational ward and swallow a lump in my throat. The doors are barricaded, stitched together by barbed wire. I search for a way around, and spot a broken window. No light beyond it, only the deepest dark: a tunnel entrance to Dante's Inferno. I no longer possess the will to enter. Father Martin could have at least given me a flashlight or something, evil bastard.

Then, from one of the open windows on the second floor, a woman cries out in pain.

It's gotta be Jessie.

No matter what fresh hell awaits, I have to at least try to save her. I would want her to do the same for me.

Enough time's been wasted. I climb through, careful to avoid the jagged, broken glass teeth. Aside from a ghostly bar of light let in by the busted window, the vocational block may as well be as dark as the center of the earth. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to take the first few steps into the building.

I reach out with both hands, feeling for a wall. A few paces more, and my fingers brush against crumbling plaster. Keeping my left hand on the wall, I turn and start walking, my right hand in front. The sounds of the drying ground fade, replaced with a dim, mechanical hum. The floor and walls groan, as if protesting their age. I feel like I'm in a tomb, impossible to tell if the walls are closing in, or if they stretch on forever.

_SCCCCCCREEEEECH!_

I freeze in place. Something heavy's been pushed. I crane my head to look over my shoulder. Someone has moved something over the window, sealing my exit.

I can't do this. I'm too afraid. How could I have been so stupid? Why, WHY didn't I bring a fucking light?

When I can't possibly be any more terrified, my fear soars to new, maddening heights. Someone behind me starts to sing:

“Midnight, with the stars and you

Midnight, and a rendezvous

Your eyes held a message tender,

Saying, 'I surrender all my love to you.'”

Eddie Gluskin's voice, singing a song that echoes out of the depths of my memories. Tears begin to stream down my cheeks. Lane and I used to watch _The Shining_ in the dark, during sleepovers. We'd try to scare each other with that song the next day. A couple of weird goth girls, freaking out the other kids with our immature pranks. How they used to stare...but we didn't mind, we always laughed them off.

Lane. I can feel you next to me. You're here with me, in the dark.

“This way,” she whispers, her lips brushing my ear. “Hurry, he's nearly on top of you!”

She leads me away.

Eddie prowls after us on silent feet. I can't hear him, but I know he's still there. If those massive hands of his get ahold of me, I'm dead.

Lane's fingers grasp mine, tight. They're warm, real. She pushes a door open.

“Kneel,” she tells me. “Crawl.”

She lets go of my hand, pulling me to the floor. I get on my hands and knees and follow after her as best as I can. My arm brushes against the leg of a table, my palm lands on a spool of thread, a wad of yarn. We zig-zag a winding path in the dark. My shoulder rubs against something smooth: an overturned table.

“Lane, wait up!” I hiss. I can no longer touch her feet in front of me, but I hear her sliding over things.

“Now, now!” Eddie chastises, with the same eerie _Leave It to Beaver_ tone. “Don't play these games, darling. I'll come and collect you, if you won't stop.”

My head smacks into a table, and I yelp. Eddie moves faster, knocking things over.

“Show yourself to me! I won't hurt you.”

The fuck you won't, I think, with a flash of anger. I pick up the pace as Eddie's shoes crunch against the floor. He's right behind us. My heart could drum a hole straight through my rib cage.

Lane pulls me to my feet all of a sudden, grabs my hand, and leads me down an empty strip.          

“Don't let go,” I plead to her. “I can't see anything.”

“Shhh,” she hushes. “I won't, I promise.”

We start climbing a flight of stairs. My head's buzzing with confusion.

“Lane, where have you been?” I ask. “All this time? I thought you were dead...”

She shakes her head. “I can't tell you now. Come on, faster!”

“Why do you run from me?” Eddie calls, from the bottom. “I only want the chance to hold you!”

My sneaker touches the second floor, then...

“I can see you!”

Frantic footfalls up the steps now.

“Oh, turn around and let me see the front! I long to gaze on your-”

We push by a door, into another room. I bump into blunt objects, the ends of tables, struggling to keep my grip on Lane's hand.

“Faster!” she gasps, tugging my whole arm. She seems to know every room, every path.

“You know where you're going, don't you?” I hiss. “You've been here before!”

She concedes, “All right, yes. Now come on!”

There's too much junk in our way, and I can't stop tripping. I reach out with my free hand to steady myself. My hand grabs a soft shoulder, then a foam face, and I realize we're running through a forest of mannequins. Weak, green light shines up ahead. Lane's hair flutters like bat's (((moth's))) wings.

All at once, the bleeding Rorschach images come rushing back. Roaring fills my ears, static chewing inside my skull. (((The little creatures that gnaw! They crawl, eating holes through the soft tissue of my brain))).

“Ahhhg...” I whimper, slowing down. My foot lands on a large wooden spool, sends it rolling, and I go down. I press my hand into the side of my face and jab my pinky into my eye, trying to relieve the pressure behind it.

“Fight it!” Lane urges me. “Mel! Not much farther.”

She jerks me to my feet again. My head's going to explode all over this room, and there won't be any Mel left for Eddie to play with. At least, no parts of Mel that care.

Somehow, I manage to keep going. Lane opens a door and shuts it the moment I step in.

“Get in,” Lane tells me. Squeak of a locker door opening. She guides me inside my metal sarcophagus, and shuts it.

“What about you?” I ask. “Don't leave!”

“Wait until he goes, or we're dead.”

“Lane, no! Come back.”But she's gone. I shut my eyes, and the images flash.

(((a kaleidoscope of horrors/bodies hanging from trees/children twitching in graves/an injured bird torn into thousands of pieces by ants)))

Pressure builds behind my sockets. It's like someone's taped two strobe lights to my face. I claw at my own eyes, ready to tear them out of my skull.

((( _Hahaha! Here he comes. That's what you get for wandering in my woods!_ )))

Like a nightmare vision come to life, Eddie enters the room, shoes crunching on broken glass and shards of pottery. The door clicks shut.

“Are you in here?” he asks. “Hiding under one of the tables, perhaps? Are you readying yourself for me?”

He checks around the room. I can just make him out through the slats in the locker. I can see cropped black hair, a wedding tuxedo, polished black shoes. Bloodstains. And he's big. Not as big as the Walker brute that attacked Ellen and I, but enough to overpower me, easy.

“Uuuuugh,” someone moans from another room. Not Jessie's voice this time, but a man's voice, at the lowest end of desperation. “Someone! Help me!”

Eddie looks behind him, annoyed.

“Ahh, it'll have to wait, then,” he says remorsefully. “I have to take care of a little _nuisance_ first. But don't worry, I won't be long.”

Extra venom on the word 'nuisance'. Poor thing. Whoever he is, I can't help him now. I wait until it's quiet, and open the locker, listening.

“Lane?” I hiss. “Are you in here? Jessie?”

Someone standing in the corner. Did she really hide there, like a child? I inch my way to the door and find a light switch, flicking a single light on.

It's only a mannequin. Someone's dressed it in a black wig and white scraps of clothing. The room is filled with sewing appliances and supplies. No sign of Lane or Jessie, anywhere.

Feeling foolish, I try the door, but of course Eddie's blocked it from the outside. Sneaky fucker. I turn around and climb over reams of white fabric and boxes, pull some wood pallets aside, and my work pays off: there's a crevice in the back of the room, just big enough for me to squeeze through. It's connected to the next room. The light is on. I can see through a hole in the cheap plaster: there's a bed, and a pair of women's shoes at the foot of it. The door to the room's been blocked by a metal supply cart.

I kick a hole for myself in the plaster. The effort's exhausting, and I have to wait a minute and catch my breath.

As I wait, I'm forced to listen to Eddie torture his victim. I have no idea what he's doing, but it sounds demonic.

“NO! NOOO!” his victim screams from somewhere, deeper in the building. “NOT THERE! AAAAAAAHHHHHHGH!”

A buzz saw revs to life, answering the morbid question. Suddenly I'm not so tired. I lower myself and go through the hole, feet first. Standing up, a smell hits me right away: metallic, strong, rotten yet sweet. It's then I notice a set of bloody, bare footprints, leading to a closet.

“Jessie?”

I walk over to the bed first, grab the sheet, and flip it back: spots of bright blood. My hand grasping the cover goes numb, and I drop it.

“HOLD STILL, MY DARLING!” Eddie shouts in ecstasy. The saw buzzes like an angry swarm. It almost drowns out the man's dying screams.

I can't seem to feel anything. Not dread, not fear, not even fatigue. Nothing. I feel nothing as I follow the footprints to the closet. Nothing, as I slide the door to the side. Nothing, when I see someone's bare legs and feet, poking out of the shadows.

Jessie lays in a pile of old coats and wire hangers, her legs spread. Her head's slumped to one side, her glasses on the floor, cracked and broken. Between her open legs, a pool of blood and placental fluid seeps into the wood, bits of pink tissue scattered everywhere. In her fist, a bloody coat hanger rests, uncurled into a rod.

I fall to my knees.

I'm too late.


	10. The Word of Our Lord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel learns Jessie's secret, and her true intentions. Eddie Gluskin isn't happy about the treatment of his 'bride'.

 “Oh Christ,” I breathe. I reach out to brush her hair from her face. As white as a mannequin, in her green prairie woman dress, she looks like a doll that's been abandoned by her owner.

Suddenly, her eyes shoot open, interlocking with mine. My heart stops in my chest.

"Jessie?" I gasp.

“Mel. I had to,” she croaks. She lifts the wire hanger. Her hands are stained red. Fresh blood trickles out from the ruin between her legs.

“Don't,” I say, grabbing her wrist. I take the hanger and throw it across the room. I hold her hand and realize the truth: She's lost far too much blood. There's no way she's leaving this room with me.

“I had to,” she says again. “He was...”

“Eddie was what?”

She shakes her head once. It's taking her last ounce of life to speak, and the band saw is still buzzing loudly. I lean closer to catch her faltering words:

“No. Eddie took me...from my room. Threw me on the bed and was gonna...saw that I was, that I never had...he locked me in here. It was...Martin. He was going...to make me birth it.”

She shuts her eyes, draws a hollow breath. Sobs, and moans, “So I...took care of it, before he could!”

Her entire body shivers, tears streaking her face. I try not to look down at the blood.

“All right,” I tell her, stroking her hand. “It's all right. You didn't do anything wrong, Jessie. You hear me? This is not your fault.”

She smiles weakly.

“You don't know who I am, what I've done,” she says. “But God told me...who you are. Take it with you.”

She can't move her head, but her eyes look to her right. I spot the thick, leather-bound Bible on the floor. I hesitate a moment, before picking it up.

The saw stops its awful buzzing, and my ears start ringing.

Jessie sighs, closing her eyes.

“Thank you, Me-”

Her mouth droops open, and one final breath rattles from her throat. Her head sinks back, and I know she's gone. I can think of nothing else to do, but to take one of the coats and cover her up, giving her some dignity.

I stand up. There's no time to grieve, and I'm still too numb to react. I wipe my eyes, turn my back to the closet, sit on the bed. I don't even care about Eddie anymore, and I figure I'm safe behind the barrier and the door, at least for the moment. I crack the Bible open. A note's written on the inside of the cover. Jessie's handwriting is precise, not a single pen stroke out of place, as if printed by a computer:

Mel,

I'm writing to you because God has told me that you would come. Seeing as I'm not long for this world, I must write my confession on these holy pages, and may He forgive me this one last sin. By the time you read this, I'm probably dead and in Heaven. Do not weep for me. Instead, worry for your own soul, which is in dire need of saving. If I can do one last good thing in this world, it will be to help you see the light.

For the past five years I've set churches ablaze and burned them to the ground. I was a programmer for a big military contractor, before I was saved. When I converted and was baptized, I decided to use my knowledge for good. As a side gig I worked as bait for a pedophile ring investigation. What that means is I chatted up perverts online, made them think I was a twelve-year-old girl, and had them agree to sexual acts, to take place at our next meeting.

One of the men we busted was a pastor of a megachurch in Mississippi. Over 5,000 strong in his congregation. It got me thinking how many souls these demons, masquerading as men, were corrupting. I quit the side gig, took what I learned, and went rogue. I found pastors and priests, so-called men of God,  and discovered their chat room usernames. One by one, I learned about their fantasies, their wicked desires aimed at God's true innocents: children.

I don't know why I'm like this. I don't believe in past lives, but I think someone hurt me before. Maybe a priest. I've always hated men who harm children. Then again, who doesn't? But mine was driven by a furious passion, an obsession.

The first men I killed, I got confessions out of 'em, just to be certain. That was after I hacked into their personal computers and found stories, pictures, videos. I just had to hear it from their own lips. Then I lured them to their houses of worship, tied them to their precious podiums and let the flames do the rest. How I rejoiced in their screams! God have mercy on me. The last three, I didn't need look for evidence. All I needed was a whiff of degeneracy, and I was after them like a hound. These were men with families, wives, children. Many were victims, themselves. I didn't care.

Murder will always be a sin. I can't change that. Now God is punishing me for my crimes. I know there's no baby inside me, but I have to go through with it, just in case. Something kicks in my belly, and it ain't the awful food here. Father Martin is evil, Melanie. Never forget that. Don't bargain with any devil, even the ones inside you. Master them.

This entire place is Hell on Earth. It is a carnival ground for Satan. It must be destroyed. I'm no fool. I know corporations like Murkoff take great pains to stamp out whistleblowers. Truth be told, that task is neither for you, nor I. But as surely as the flood purged the world of the corrupt, so, too, must you open the gates to the rain, Mel! Take my Bible with you. Study it, ask God for answers, and free your mind, as I have freed mine. You may wish to start with Matthew 21:12-17.

Yours in Christ,

-Jessie

P.S.: I prayed on it, and God has told me that your trial by fire isn't over. You will endure worse, before it gets better. I pray you will find your faith.

I flip through the Bible frantically. There are notes on every page, numbers circled, things underlined. Hardly a single word is untouched by her pen. It would take years and years to go through it all. I find the passage she cited and read it:

_12 Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 He said to them, “It is written,_

_‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’;_

_but you are making it a den of robbers.”_

_14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry 16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,_

_‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies_

_you have prepared praise for yourself’?”_

_17 He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there._

She's marked up this page, like all the others. But certain letters are boxed in with red pen, and 'Bethany' has been crossed out. The word 'SUBLEVEL 666' has been written over it. The name 'David' has also been circled. I search the end table next to the bed, and pull out the drawer. Inside are a pen...and a butane lighter, full of fuel. There are a few blank sheets of drawing paper as well.

I take a sheet, and write down the letters with boxes, in order: 'JOHN 13'

Turn to the Book of John, Chapter 13. It's the one where Jesus washes his disciples' feet, and predicts that one of them will betray him.

There are letters boxed in on this page, too. I write them down, following a chain of references, until I have a message before me:WINDOWS+R CMD.EXE ENTER START SPACE LUCIFER ENTER. NOW BURN THIS BOOK.

It's a command prompt for some sort of program, 'Lucifer'. Did Jessie create it? I read it over again. SUBLEVEL 666. DAVID.

There must be a computer she wants me to access on Sublevel 666. 'David' could be a password. Maybe it's a person. Maybe Jessie's just another lunatic, and I'm an idiot for thinking this means anything.

Why would she go through all the trouble of hiding this in her Bible? Why not just write it in her note? “Hey by the way, if you want to destroy Murkoff and get back at them for what they did to us, here's a nifty trick!”

Frowning, I gaze over at Jessie. The ruin has been covered by the coat. She could be sleeping. I set her Bible on the end table. Maybe she's not counting on anybody from Murkoff reading through the Good Book, but just in case, she wanted to cover her tracks. And I've never been good at riddles, but I know computers enough to do what's been asked of me.

My spine tingles suddenly.

Singing, from behind the door. Eddie, returned from his slaughter.

I pocket the paper, and grab Jessie's Bible and the lighter. The door to the room rattles, followed by a thud. A hinge pops, and a screw falls to the floor, rolls under the bed.

“Locked? Not very polite of you,” Eddie chides. He throws his shoulder into the door, over and over.The metal cart tips over. I dive through the hole I made in the wall, squeezing into the passageway, just as Eddie rips the door off its frame and throws it into the room.

“Darling?” he calls. He stomps over to the closet. Lifts the jacket covering Jessie. Sees the bloody coat hanger on the floor. “Oh, NO...what have you done? She was pure, innocent. My lovely, poor little bride.” 

There's an evil undertone to his words, a rising anger. He takes a giant stride across the room and starts punching through the plaster. I fight my way down the passage, trapped like a rat.

“WHORE!” he roars, between blows to the wall. “Baby-killing SLUT! I'll get you for this!”

The plaster crumbles, letting in light. Eddie shoves his upper body inside, his eyes glinting with cold fury in their dark sockets. Tears streak the dust caked to his pale face. His mouth, with its shining white teeth, is drawn into an insane half-smile, half-grimace, as if he's trying to laugh his way though a root canal.

“Get back here!”

He lunges, but his wide shoulders pin him in place. I push with all my might against the wooden pallets and free myself from the wall. Eddie backs up, retreats into the other room. I scramble down the pile of junk and rush to the door, ripping at the handle.

The door's still blocked from the other side. But not for long. Eddie's running over to it, moving things.

I look around the room one last time. A bulb is blinking and crackling above me. I start to feel dizzy.

“Here, Mel!” Ellen Rivers says cheerfully, crouched in her spot in the corner, by the mannequin. I run over to her, and she hands me something she's picked up, from the floor.

“Thanks partner,” I tell her, clutching the object. “I would've missed this without you. Fancy seeing you here.”

She winks at me. “That Chris Walker gave me some trouble. But you best hide now!”

I turn away from her, heading for the locker. I climb in and slam the door shut.

“Someone else there? You can't hide from me!” Eddie yells. The door to the room swings open. He closes it. I can see him through the slats, looking around. The wild animal rage dissipates from his face, replaced with a cadaverous grin. He's holding a long, sharp knife.

He knows he has me. This is now a cat-and-mouse game. My stomach drops through the floor like the acid scene in _Alien._

“Could sheee beeee...under the table?” he sings, and makes a show of dropping to the floor, peeking under it. The knife sparkles, winks at me in the light.

“Could sheeee beee...hiding in the corner?”

He checks behind the mannequin. No one's there. He grabs the mannequin, and does a little spin dance with it, twirling it round, before bringing it to his hips and dipping it. I would laugh, if I wasn't so sure I was about to die a horrendous, painful death.

Eddie lets it fall to the floor. Blue eyes laser focus on me, through the slats.

“Could she be...in the locker?”

I hold my breath.

He raises the knife, starts walking toward me. Says sorrowfully, “I'm going to have to punish you now, girlie. Gonna have to teach you a woman's place. To show them we care, sometimes we must HURT the ones we LOVE.”

I put the Bible under one arm, click the butane lighter on, and hold up a can of spray paint. The locker door swings open. Eddie leers in at me. His smile vanishes.

“In that case, I LOVE you!” I scream and press the trigger.

The spray ignites, shooting a jet of flame in his face. It catches the right side, setting his head on fire.

Eddie drops the knife and howls in pain, slapping his hands against his burning head. I throw the can of paint at his face, and shove him as hard as I can.

But even that isn't enough. Eddie's too big, too heavy. He takes his burning hands and grabs me by the waist, before I can get away. Lifts me in the air.

“AHHH!” I scream in agony. His hands sear my flesh like hot irons.

He throws me to the ground, knocking the breath (and screams) from my lungs. I drop the lighter; the Bible's wedged under my spine. Still on fire, Eddie raises a boot and stomps down at me. I roll to the side. He stomps again, I roll to the other side.

“HOLD STILL! HOLD-AAAAIIIEEEE! Not my suit!”

The fire spreads, eating at his shirt and vest. The acrid smell of burning hair and flesh fills the room. Eddie hesitates, runs over to the pile of junk and rips a blanket free, shoving his head in it. I guess saving his suit is more important than killing me.

I grab the lighter and Bible, get up, and run. Eddie's screaming profanities, threatening to 'stab my disgusting cunt wide open'. I click the lighter on again and start burning Jessie's Bible, holding it in front of me like a torch. I pass offices, a studio area, random machinery...and a bench where a man's been sawed in half.

There's a male body on the table next to it, two holes cut out in the chest, a third between the legs. He's making a female effigy, out of male parts. I tear my eyes away from the scene. I find some stairs and fly down them at speeds I didn't know I possessed. I don't stop running until I find a window, wrench it open, and climb out, onto the drying ground.

I flee into the mist with the burning Bible, making sure I'm well away from the vocational building, before throwing it to the ground. It's done, blackened, ruined. Probably looks like Eddie's face.

Done, but not over.

Before I can get back inside admin block, I stumble and fall over, chest heaving. The burns on my waist ache and smart. I try to lift my shirt to look at them, but it's stuck, having melted into my skin. The effort sends waves of pain radiating down my sides. My vision goes blurry. I haven't eaten or drank anything in days (except for the scraps in the office), and I'm weak. Escaping Eddie Gluskin has sapped the last of my strength.

I don't even have the energy to cry for Jessie. My eyes are dry as desert sand. If I don't find shelter soon, get something in my system, I'm going to die. And I need to get something on these burns.

But I can't return to Father Martin, now that his precious Lamb is dead. He'd probably have those two brothers stab me until I resemble a pincushion, maybe throw me on a burning pyre for good measure. And I still don't know how to get the fuck out of here. I'm starting to think I'm not supposed to. Maybe I've always been here, and my entire life has been a delusion.

My stomach growls again. One thing at a time. Food. I need to find food, water, shelter. If there was food in the one break room, perhaps there's more. I turn from the courtyard entrance, and head back into the admin block.

If I had known what awaited me there, I would have gladly run back to Father Martin and the Apostles, and begged their forgiveness.


	11. Trager Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel, hallucinating and exhausted, tries the basement and parts of the male ward. A harrowing chase leads her deeper into the asylum and into the clutches of a doctor searching for his lost patient.

Finally...

I'm in an office on the second floor of the admin block, crouched in front of an open mini-fridge. There are two bottles of water, a couple cans of Coke, and a Tupperware container with a Post-It note that reads: ANNAPURNA'S LUNCH, DO NOT TOUCH.

“Sorry,” I say, and take a bite into the ham and cheese sandwich, crumpling the note in my hand. It tastes like it's a few days old, but I don't care. I eat the entire thing in a few bites, and gulp down a bottle of water. I'm still starving, but there's no more food. I push whatever furniture I can find in front of the door, lie down in the farthest corner, and pass out.

I don't know how long I sleep for. When I wake up, the furniture's in the same place. My sides  ache from where Gluskin burned me. Gingerly, I peel a section of my shirt back, unsticking it from my flesh with a whimper.

There's a pink hand print, a string of blisters along the fingers, wrapped around my waist.

“Shit,” I mutter. It looks bad, but then again, most burns do. I need antibiotics, bandages.

I know where to get that stuff, but I don't wanna go anywhere near there.

“Maybe there's a first-aid kit around,” I say aloud. Talking to myself doesn't seem weird at all now.

I get up, hissing with pain, and start moving the furniture out of the way. I sneak into the hall.

My bare feet pad along the wooden floor, and I'm careful to avoid broken glass. My shoes are gone. I don't remember how I lost them, but it must have been while I was running from Eddie. I sip on a can of Coke, and crush it in my hand when I'm done, throwing it behind me. I search the rooms up here again to be sure. The offices are all duds, not a first-aid kit in site.

There is one other place I haven't checked. It's down the stairs I go, into the basement. No sign of Chris Walker, Father Martin, nobody. The asylum is quiet, too quiet, as they say in the movies.

Maybe everyone is asleep, I giggle to myself. Even homicidal monsters sleep, don't they? Can't keep killing and terrorizing young women all the time, sometimes you need to take a siesta. I wonder what they dream about?

I reach the bottom of the stairwell and trudge into cold water. Hallelujah! The fucking basement's flooded. A switchboard on my right shoots sparks like a firecracker. I missed out on the fourth of July, stuck in this place. Happy belated Independence Day to me. May I find my freedom.

I navigate a damp maze of brick walls, knee-deep in water now, using the lighter when it gets dark. The corridors down here are blocked by plyboard and junk, or otherwise walled up entirely, and I'm forced to make sharp, awkward turns. Eventually, I find the middle of the basement, and slog my way through a jungle of pipes and old machines. There's an electrical panel in the center with a red light that looks important.

Don't care about that. I tread through the murky water and check both rooms in the back, opening the lockers. Ahh, sweet success. I find a little bit of medical tape, and use it to wrap the cut on my hand and the nail hole in my shin. And there on, the top shelf: a tube of Neosporin. I snatch it up.

And—what's this? I reach way in the back of the locker, snatching a plastic bottle. A few pills rattle inside. I pop the cap off and dump three little, tan pills into my palm. It's 40mg tablets of OxyContin. I swallow one down without a second thought, break one in half and swallow that, too. It's a monstrous dose, but I'm in monstrous pain. The rest I tuck into my pocket.

I decide to head back up to the first floor. Not a good idea to treat my wounds down here in this germ-infested pit. As I reach the bottom of the stairs again, I hear someone else, sloshing through the water behind me. A chill runs down my neck. Were they following me this entire time?

“Ritual,” an inhuman voice mumbles. “Must perform...the ritual. Secret Command Enter, and set him free.”

What ritual? Set who free?

I don't want to find out, and run up the steps two at at time. Whoever it was, they don't follow me. I rush back to my secret room and push the furniture back in its place. I slather the ointment on the exposed burn and blisters, bringing tears to my eyes. I try the other side, gritting my teeth and pulling at the fabric, but it doesn't give. It's no use. I can't bring myself to do it. Maybe if I had scissors.

I shove the Neosporin in my other pocket. Now what?

I'm out of ideas. Lane's journal might have had this place mapped out, but there's no going back to look for Father Martin in my current state.

An idea hits me: maybe there's a map on the computers.

I poke my head out the door. The balcony's clear. I sneak down the stairs again and into one of the computer labs (avoiding the one with the trail of bloody footprints). I sit down at one and jiggle the mouse. Nothing but a blue screen. They're all like this. Murkoff must have done an emergency reset.

The reception guy's computer was working, last time I was down here. I sneak back out to the main desk, and try his, but it's the same: blue screen asking for password.

I try entering 'David', but it doesn't work. Neither does Lucifer or Sublevel 666.

“Fuck!” I smash my fist against the keyboard. I feel like I'm close to what I need, but I don't know where to go. I've already been to the damn basement, and there's nothing, no sublevels, no labs, nothing. Is it too much to ask for a map? I wish Lane would just show up again and show me the way, but wish in one hand...

“What was that?” a gruff voice asks. “Over here! I heard somethin'.”

Shit!

I can see the shadows of three men, along the upstairs hall, approaching the balcony. Where do I run? I can't go back upstairs, and there's someone (or something) prowling in the basement. A right at the elevator would take me towards the female ward, and I've had about enough of that fucking place. I cross the computer lab, pass through an office full of documents, into a hall. A set of bars to my right separates me from the elevator area.

“There she is.”

Three patients press their rotten faces to the bars, reaching for me. Their bodies are ridden with pustules, some type of skin infection going around the aslyum. Two are shirtless, the third naked but for a section of his pants still clinging to his bony hips.

“I can smell her!” one growls, jumping against the bars, rattling them. “Did you hear me? I smell you!”

“Fuck off!” I scream at them. “Leave me alone!”

“Mmm, feisty,” another one purrs, grabs his crotch. “I want a go at her first.”

I take a step back, sweating. His companions laugh, and they start running toward the computer lab. I turn and run. Nothing but offices to hide in, but they're all way too open. One's even full of a few droolers watching static on the TV. I bolt for the farthest room at the end of the corridor and slam the door shut. Nothing in this room, either.

For a moment, everything softens into a dreamlike state. The oxy's already starting to affect me. My burns still hurt, but it's a dulled pain now.

A child's voice cries faintly, “Melanie, here! This way!”

Grace?

I raise my eyes to a pair of white curtains, billowing in a summer night's breeze. The window is open. A tiny figure stands behind the drapes. I jump and spin to face the door, as the thuds from the patients grow louder, just outside the room.

“Comin' for ya!”

“Come sit in my lap, baby! I got somethin' to show you.”

The curtains rustle in the wind. The figure's disappeared. I climb through the open window, and step on a stone ledge. My vision doubles, and for a few dizzying moments I have four hands instead of two. Don't look down, I tell myself. Don't you fucking look down. I slide right, moving at what feels like a snail's pace. My palms are dripping sweat. The coarse stone rubs against my back, aggravating my burns, but I can barely feel them now. This Oxy's good shit.

“Where'd she go?!” 

It sounds like they're splitting up, checking the rooms. It's only a matter of time before they spot the window. I stare straight ahead, but there's a full moon out, and a leg-breaking drop waiting for me if I fall. If that happens, it's over for me. Game over, man.

A cloud scuds over the moon, shadows smothering the wall. It's dark. I can't move. It's the vocational block all over again.

To my surprise, Grace peeks from behind the corner ahead, waving me on. “Come on! It's easy!”

“I'm not small like you!” I tell her.

Grace's blonde hair blows about in the wind. She's wearing a white medical gown, too far away for me to see her blue eyes. Instead, there are two black holes in her face.

“What are you doing out here? It's not safe!” I say.

“Playing!” she laughs, as if this is all a game. “Come on!”

“I'm losing my god-damned mind.” I shudder. “That's what's happening here.”

Before I know it, I've reached the end of the wall, and I turn the corner, to see Grace clamber down a gutter.

“Just like the one we used at Stonewall!” she calls up to me from the ground. “Remember? We used to sneak into the courtyard and play! Before they took me away and put me in that room, all alone.”

I nod my head, grinning like a child. “Yes!”

Gripping the slippery edges of the gutter, my body remembers what my mind's forgotten. Even in the haze of the drugs, I remember. I HAVE done this before. It may not be exactly as Grace said it was, but I did used to sneak to the courtyard at night. I monkey-climb down the gutter, finding grooves in the walls for my toes to grip. Looking down, a fresh wave of dizziness (((moth's wings))) blinds me for a second. Then it goes away. Not much farther now.

“That's it!” Grace encourages me. “Easy!”

But the pills have done their work. My foot slips on a patch of slime, and I start falling. I claw at the gutter with weak hands, but it breaks, peeling away from the wall. For a sickening moment, I'm weightless, air rushing in my ears. 

WHUMP! Nothing happens, save for a brief, sharp stab of pain from my burns that's quickly dulled again. I've landed on something soft. In an incredible stroke of luck, someone has thrown a mattress down here. I gaze up at the gutter, and my stomach twists into a knot.

There are smeared, bloody handprints leading up to the ledge. Someone had used the mattress as a prop, was trying to escape from down here.

And then I spot something even more discouraging. Back up on the ledge, if I had kept going, there was another open window (windows? No, just seeing double again) a few rooms down.

“Grace? Why'd you lead me down here?” I mumble, spinning on my heel.

But she's gone.

I'm boxed in by walls on three sides, the asylum on the other. Nothing out here but some bushes and the mattress. My only choice is a basement window, already cracked open. I crawl on my stomach and slide through it, into a supply closet. By now there's a pleasant vibrating in the corners of my vision, and I feel like I'm floating.

There's nothing in here than can help me, unless I want to mix a bunch of chemicals and have myself a little suicide cocktail.

Fear creeps back into my veins. I'm in the basement of the male ward. NOT where I wanna be. As I start for the door, I hear voices on the other side.

“She has to be down here. I can smell her.”

“No way she got by us.”

“I heard her talking to someone. Sounded like a kid.”

“There's no kids here, fuckin' idiot.”

“That's what they said about women, but look what happened.”

You gotta be joking, I think helplessly. How did they get down so fast? Am I hallucinating this?

There's a row of lockers in here. I try and open them, but they've all got padlocks. My fingers are too stupid to even turn the dials. I'm running out of options, fast. I don't have time or the coordination to climb through the window. My hearing's getting worse, as if I have cotton stuffed inside my ear canals.

“You hear that rattling?”

“Yeah, in here!”

The door starts to open. I wedge myself in the corner between it and and the wall. The patients walk in, opening the door all the way, hiding me. They start checking the closet, shoving supplies off the shelves, moving carts around.

For a split second, I think I'm in the clear. But then one of them jerks the door to the side, and I'm looking up at a blistered, deformed face and a pair of hungry, deranged eyes.

“Found her!” he roars. He swings his fist at me.

“NO!” I scream, bringing my arms overhead. His first punch bounces off, I can't even feel it, but the next blow lands to the side of my head, stunning me.

I fall over. He grabs me by the hair. Hits me over the head a few more times, each blow harder than the last. My limbs aren't functioning; my vision goes blurry and stays that way.

The others rush over, grabbing my ankles and wrists. They drag me out into the hallway, then into a stairwell.

“As good a place as any,” one of them says, digging his fingernails into the meat of my shin. “Who's first?”

I wasn't completely certain of their intentions upstairs, but now I know, and I panic even more. I fight them with all my strength, but they pull my legs out in front of me. The third one strips off the remains of his pants, and I can see his penis hasn't been spared the horrors of the infection.

He starts yanking my pants down. I throw my head back, screaming as loud as I can,

“GET OFF ME! HELP!”

“Scream all you want,” the one holding my wrists laughs.

Pants around my knees now. He's pulling off my underwear, taking his sweet time. Grubby hands move over my bruised thighs. There's no escaping this. At least I won't feel much; I can hardly stay conscious. I shut my eyes and turn my head to the side.

“Hurry up! I want a turn next!” the one holding my ankles shouts.

The tile floor is freezing cold against my bare lower half. The one in the middle gets on top of me. Smell of his rank breath in my face. He starts lowering himself. I try and go somewhere else in my head, somewhere far away.

Then, I hear a strange, wet, cracking noise, like someone stabbing a chicken carcass with a blunt knife.

“UGH!” the one behind me groans. His grip goes lax, freeing my hands. He falls next to me, dead, bleeding from a large puncture wound in his guts.

“Gonna have to interrupt your meeting, buddy,” someone's familiar voice chimes in.

The one on top of me looks up in pure fear. The other one releases my ankles. Dimly, I can see Trager standing just behind me, holding his bone shears, which are dripping with blood. Fresh bits of gore run down his black surgeon's apron.

“Oh fuck, it's the doctor!” the patient by my feet yells.

The one on top of me gets up, shaking. Trager turns to him.

“You look kinda sick. Want me to take a look at you?”

The patient shakes his head, spittle collected the corners of his mouth. “No way man. I wanna keep my balls.”

“RUN!” the other shouts.

They rush past Trager, who lets them go. Then he leans over me and asks,

“How's it going, Number One?”

The bone shears clack against the floor, next to my left ear. I don't answer him. My tongue is sandpaper in my mouth. My face is swollen and hot where the patient hit me. My left ear won't stop ringing, and I'm pretty sure my right eardrum's busted. Trager's words sound like they're a million miles away.

“I was worried about you. Good thing I found you when I did.”

I can do nothing as Trager seizes me under the armpits and drapes me, face first, over his shoulder. With his free hand he picks up the bone shears, and starts carrying me up the stairs. He pats me on the rump.

“Let's get you back to my office, pick up where we left off, whaddaya say?”


	12. Patient Number One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bound to Trager's autopsy table, Mel fights to stay in reality as another emerging persona offers her 'help'. Results may vary. Side-effects may include: cuts, amputations, depraved sexual encounters with horrific mutant doctors, and more!

My world has flipped upside-down—literally. I'm dangling off the back of Trager's shoulder, watching the stairs pass, one by one. Some distant part of me is aware of his arm wrapped around my upper legs. My pants are dragging off my foot, like a trampled battle flag, or the world's shabbiest ghost.

It's so pathetic, it strikes me as funny, and I chuckle. A line of drool trickles down the corner of my mouth and chin. My head is full of clouds, everything comfortably numb.

“Got the right attitude, Number One,” Trager remarks, in his cheerful, I'm-the-good-boss-everybody-loves manner. “I like a girl with a sense of humor.”

The shears rattle against his leg as he walks. I fade out for a bit, and when I come to, he's laying me down on a flat, stainless steel slab. Odd choice for a bed. It's biting cold against my skin, but I don't mind one bit.

“Thanks, Doc,” I mumble.

This doesn't feel like a bed. More like an operating table. Noises from Trager as he rummages around, searching for things. Metal objects clinking together. Anguished moaning, from outside somewhere, but I'm so high it may as well be elevator music to me.

“And polite, too. See, that's what I like about you, Number One,” he says. Add that to my list of nicknames. He holds a scalpel to the light, and the tip of the blade sparkles.

“But you gave me the slip earlier. You really let me down. So we're gonna have to get some things straight. You understand.”

I try to nod, but he presses my head back. He pushes my legs together and straightens them. Straps them into place. Stretches my arms above my head and binds my wrists, too.

“I think I lost my pants,” I confess. It comes out more as, “I thnk uh losh muh pantsh.”

Trager places his hand on my left ankle and, slowly, runs his fingers down my leg, ending at my thigh. He gives it a squeeze. The scalpel's in his other hand, poised in the air.

“You've got great legs,” he mutters. He pauses, considering a hand saw on the table.

I swivel my head to look at him, and say something like, “Thanks. I've been running a lot.”

He pushes my head back, not appreciating my attempt at a joke.

“Let's get this off you.” He tugs on my shirt. It's still stuck to my right side.

“Good luck with that.”

The tip of the scalpel touches my belly and cuts upward, slicing my shirt in two. He takes half of it off, but the other side's still melted into my skin.

“Who did this?” he asks, pointing to the hand print with the scalpel.

“Eddie Gluskin. It's cold in here.”

“No one likes a complainer, sweetheart,” Trager says, tapping the scalpel with a nail. Then, with a touch of disappointment, “Don't know any Gluskin. But he apparently knows you.”

“He's a knob gobbler. Ellen says so,” I inform him. I wish my head would stop buzzing. Someone tell Eddie to turn off his band saw. To make matters worse, someone's started that movie projector. Some weird hipster film, flashing images (((moth swarm fluttering like TV-static/limp bloody hand in the back of the ambulance driving out of the ghetto taking mom away forever/mountain rising from the hills like a god of nightmares))).

“Dr. German's playing that movie again.” I say, shivering. “The woman in the gown is coming closer.”

“Shh. Hold still,” Trager hushes. I don't have much trouble in that department. He takes the scalpel and starts sawing at my shirt, cutting through crusted skin and burned fabric. He gives it a final tear, and the other half of my shirt rips free. It's covered in congealed blood, dead skin, fluids. He drops the scrap to the floor.

I sigh with relief. “Thanks. Feels better. I'll be going, now.”

I try to sit up, but the restraints won't let me.

“I'm afraid we're not done here, yet,” Trager says, annoyed, tapping the scalpel against the table. Tap tap tap. Then he lifts it and slices a cut on my left forearm. Blood trickles out.

“When I tell you to stay still, you stay still. Got it?”

I don't react, don't bother answering. I'm floating away toward the ceiling. No worries, no cares in the world. Only indifferent lightness.

“Stay with me, Number One,” Trager growls, frustrated at something.

I can't! I try and tell him. I'm being absorbed by the ceiling. Help. It's the woman in the white dress! I can't see her face, her long witch's hair covering it. She's pointing at me with her finger (((claws))), she's angry (((cackling))).

I'm watching down on all this from above. I can see myself, stark naked, on the metal slab. My arm is bleeding all over the place. Trager pokes me with the scalpel, cutting more tiny wounds. Poke. Poke. Poke. More blood leaks onto the table. He pauses and considers me, folding his arms. Slams the scalpel down flat, takes my head in his hands. Pries one of my eyes open with those long fingernails. Slaps my cheek.

“Shit,” he swears, ditching his bedside manner in his anger. “You're all doped up, aren't you? Figures.”

He takes a cart of surgical instruments and pushes it out of the room. Comes back in, places both hands on the slab, leaning over me. He looks me up and down, like a hungry man who's been told he can't eat until grace has been said.

“The witch is here,” I moan. “She's brought the moths. I need my journal.”

“We're not going to get anywhere, with you in this state. I'll wait 'til you come down. Then you're gonna start taking this seriously,” Trager threatens. He storms out of the room, slamming the door shut.

Nearby, a man starts wailing. Pleading, begging for mercy, “NOO! GET OFF ME! GET OFF! PLEASE!”

I barely hear him. The woman in the white dress reaches for me. She's trying to pull me back down. Her hands aren't hands anymore, but long, black claws, branching out, impossibly long and thin, but not brittle. Sharp as razors. Gray moths flutter around her body in a swarm cloud.

She's too late. A void has opened, yawning wide, a black hole in my mind. I don't sink back into my body. Instead, I float, higher and higher, like balloon, fading, fading into that unknowable place...

 

“Boy, you really screwed the pooch on this one,” a sarcastic, female voice huffs. It sounds a lot like mine, but in a lower, more sensual timbre. It's coming from the corner of the room.

“Ugh.”I crack my eyes open. I'm still strapped to the table, but the Oxy's worn off. My head throbs, my lips are split and dry. My burns sting wickedly, but at least the cuts Trager made have stopped bleeding.

“He calls us Number One,” the woman mentions, as if this is office gossip. “We mean something to him. Though, it's not really my style for a pet name.”

“Oh, God,” I moan as it dawns on me. “Natalie.”

Nat smiles, strides across the room, and peers over me. Her hair matches mine: long, thick, silver with black roots and streaks. She's the one that dyed it, after all. Most of our tattoos and piercings match. Instead of patient clothes, she's wearing a low-cut tanktop that reveals more than half her breasts, and a long-sleeved, fishnet shirt over that. More tight black clothing on her lower body, ending with steel-toed boots. There are snake bite piercings on her lower lip. She wears a midnight purple shade of lipstick, showcasing neat, white teeth and full lips.

In our clothing  preferences and demeanor, we couldn't be any more different. Yet her eyes are the same green as mine, though there's more than a touch of crazy to them. Even her face is more animated, her black eyebrows raised in contempt of everything.

“Miss me?” she smirks.

“I've never MET you,” I say through clenched teeth. “But NO. Every time I wake up after you, you've put my life in shambles.”

Relationships ruined. Jobs lost, abandoned. Apartments trashed beyond recognition. Stints in rehab and even jail. Dreams of finishing school, finding a career, sticking with therapy, all thrown away. All courtesy of Natalie Vasser's famous benders. I don't know a lot about her, other than she likes drugs, body modification, hardcore music, and she travels a lot, meets up with many strange people, in strange, faraway places.

Now, at least I know what she looks like.

“You and I never really had a heart to heart before,” Nat admits, resting her chin on her hand. “But I thought I'd drop in and see how you're doing. Glad I did.” She giggles. “Look at you! You don't have the first clue what you're doing, do you?”

“Go away,” I snarl, turning my face from her. “I hate you. Get the fuck out of here.”

She takes two fingers and pretends to walk them down my rib cage, toward my hip.

“You know, now that I've met you, I can see why we could never work.” She clucks her tongue and takes her hand away. “You're kind of a wimp. I really can't stand you.”

“The feeling's mutual,” I mutter. “Now go away.”

“You may want to be a BIT nicer to me,” she says, poking the tip of my nose. “If you want to get out of this alive.”

Someone's outside, moving something. Trager, with his cart of torture instruments.

“Sounds like you're awake,” he observes. “Judging by all the chatter, I'd say you're eager to get started!”

He's in a good mood again, which isn't good for us. Nat looks over her shoulder. Turns back to me.

“Switch with me,” she orders, all sarcasm gone. The corner of her mouth twitches, flicker of a knowing smirk.

The door opens. Trager's exposed backside faces me as he drags in his cart. There's a full spectrum of surgical tools spread out on it. Most of them are stained every color inside the human body, creating a morbid, anatomical rainbow.

I start to protest, but shut my lips. I glare at Nat and shake my head.

NO.

Trager busies himself with his tools, muttering conspiracies. Nat walks around me, looking from me to Trager, back to me. Her hand traces the edge of the table.

“Switch with me,” she coos. “I'll make it easier. I can make this work.”

NEVER, I think at her. Every fiber of my being is telling me not to give in. Natalie's WRONG. Everything about her is wired wrong. If I give her control now, it could mean disaster.

“Tongue-tied?” Trager inquires, leaning against the table. “When you were so talkative before? That's a shame. I was hoping we could start a dialogue again.”

He picks up a saw, gazing at his own reflection in the blade, pondering something only a devil could guess. Pieces of hair and human tissue, stuck in the saw teeth.

I whimper, helpless.

Nat slams her hands on the table and lowers her face right next to mine. She hisses in my ear, “Enough fucking games! Switch with me now. Do it!”

FUCK OFF.

“You can't handle Trager. I can!”

She's breathing rapidly, her pupils dilated. There's too much eagerness in her voice. Too much excitement. But under all that, a secret layer of fear, of self-preservation. If I die, she dies.

Trager presses the sharp teeth of the saw into the soft flesh of my ankle. I wince, unable to look at him, and shut my eyes tight, tears pricking at the corners.

“Aw, don't cry, Number One. We'll make progress if it kills me,” he assures, his words dripping with sadistic delight. “Gotta work out the KINKS.”

The muscles in his arm flex. The saw rocks back once. He's going to fucking cut my foot off and there's nothing I can do.

OKAY, I think at Natalie. OKAY! DO IT.

The last thing I see, while I still have control, is Nat's cold, determined stare, and big, wide, devilish grin. She grabs me by the shoulders, and I black out for a split second.

I come back online. I can't move, can't leave my body. Nat's hijacked all control. It's like I've woken up during anesthesia. I can feel everything, can do nothing.

“You know, Doc,” Nat purrs, smooth as butter. She's (((we're))) still restrained to the table, but she lifts her head to look him in the eye.

Trager stops, the saw still resting on her (((our)))) ankle. He can hear something in her (((our))) voice has changed.

“I like you a LOT more than that old boring priest,” she admits.

“Is that so?”

He isn't sure what to think. He only seems irritated that his fun's been interrupted.

Nat flashes him a coy smile. Nods. “Mmm. I'm a big fan of your work, actually. The other patients talk about you. So does Father Martin.”

She wiggles the restraint on her right hand, making noise.

The saw rocks back again. He's going fucking to do it and I'm going to feel everything oh god oh god-

“Don't you wanna know what he said about you?” she asks.

The mood's been spoiled. Nat's too calm, too collected. There's a climax of fear that has to happen, before he can start his 'work'.

He sets the saw on the cart.

“Did somebody flip a switch?” he asks, tilting his head, regarding Nat through his broken glasses. “You seem...different.”

Nat's all smiles. She tips her body to the right a little. Trager's gaze wavers from her face, down to the nipple piercing on her left breast. Back to her face.

“I feel different,” she answers. “Now that those painkillers Father Martin gave me have worn off.”

“What did that old wind bag have to say?” he pries, suspicious. “Are you two close?”

Jingle of the restraint again, louder this time.

“All SORTS of stuff. But he said you didn't know what you were doing. That you were some kind of agent of Satan,” Nat tells him. “I'm rather fond of the Man Downstairs, myself.”

“I can see that,” Trager notices, eyes roving over her tattoos and body. There's a faint hint of desire in his words, a lust that wasn't there before.

If I could gag, I would. I'm also aware of Nat's feelings, which aren't much of an improvement. She's throbbing intensely between her legs. I can't tell if she's getting off on deceiving him...or worse. Maybe she wants him.

Clacking of the wrist restraint, again.

Trager takes a few steps toward her. Says, “You know, you shouldn't pay that priest any mind. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's the delusional one, spouting all that faith crap. I believe in the real deal. In the pleasures of THIS reality.”

His hand snakes out and touches Nat's taut, flat belly. Strokes her skin. Nat pretends to draw away, but I can sense she's plotting. Scheming.

The restraint chimes again. She wiggles her fingers, drawing his attention there.

“Are you up to something you shouldn't be?” he asks.

He lunges suddenly, grabbing both wrists, and pins Nat flat to the table. He's so close now, close enough for her to do something.

“You don't get many patients like me,” Nat says, looking up at him with intense, burning eyes, her pupils swollen with lust.

“I told them adding females to the program was a good move,” Trager muses, still on top of her. “They listened to me. Old Rick knows a good deal when he hears one. And I gotta admit, you're right. Bit of a sausage fest going on here.”

His grip is vice-like around her wrists. I feel the heat radiating off his body. He's enjoying this as much as she is, sick fucks. But I think this is it. This is gonna be Nat's time to shine. She's gonna pull some crazy trick out of her bag.

Instead, Nat teases him, saying, “How about this deal: Why don't you keep me around for a while?”

She lifts her head and licks him, from his collar bone up to his jaw and cheek. Arches her back and presses her breasts into his chest, drags her nipples across his skin.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I scream, but my cries fall on deaf ears.

“ALL of me. Could be more fun for you,” Nat finishes, lowering herself down on the slab.

Trager shudders at her touch. For a split second, he's frozen, thinking. He checks the restraints on both her wrists, then rises to his full height. He's got broad shoulders, and those arms of his can swing those metal shears around, easy. There's a tube of blood woven around his left arm, starting at his hand, ending at a band on his bicep. I can only guess what it's for. The left side of his face is in tatters, hidden by the torn surgical mask, and his lips have been mostly ripped off, exposing jaw muscles and teeth: A nightmare of a human being, or what remains of one, the outer form as twisted as the mind inside.

Nat's looking at him, too, seeing something completely different. I can't read her thoughts, but I can feel her arousal, her want. This is just a game to her. Life's one big game, and there are winners and there are losers. Pawns and the hands that move them. Nat thinks she's a mover, and she's not a pawn, either, although she can act like one when she needs to. The truth is, she's not even playing the game. She's the hand of God that comes down and flips the entire fucking board over, scattering the pieces.

Whatever game this is, she wins the round.

“As I said, I like you, Number One,” Trager says finally. “Think I'll keep you around. You bring a certain, feminine charm, to this place.”

Nat grins. “I'm SO glad to hear you say that.”

“But I have to keep you like this, 'til I know I can trust you,” he continues. He reaches out, squeezes her thigh, not with the light touch he used earlier, but strong, desirous.

Nat bites her lip.

“Think you can be a good girl for me?”

“Yes,” she says, pouting a little. “Do you have to go now?”

“Got patients to attend to. Lots of work to be done,” he muses. “Maybe I'll show you, in time.”

His hand snakes down, between her legs, exploring her sex, searching for something: Nat's thirst for him.

If my skin could crawl, it would be skittering across the floor right now. This is BEYOND fucked. But so is having your ankle sawed off in front of you.

“Feel something you like?” Nat breathes.

Trager rubs her sex affectionately, and she presses her pelvis into his hand, giving him easier access. Thrills of exhilaration run through her body in little, yummy shock waves. Just as she really starts enjoying herself, though, he takes his hand away. His fingers are slick.

“Be seeing you, sweetheart,” he says. “I need your can-do attitude when I get back. Your A-game. Think you can manage that?”

“I can manage a lot of things,” Nat assures him, winking. “Go do your thing.”

He looks her over one more time, before wheeling the surgical cart out, into the hall, and shutting the door.

Nat doesn't do much after that. She lays there, her heart racing, unable to move.

The fuck are you doing? I ask her. NATALIE!

“You're still here? Great.” She groans aloud in annoyance. Then, turning her emotions on a dime, she smiles. “Enjoying the show? Maybe you ARE more fun than I thought.”

If I could throw up all over myself I would, I say with utmost disgust. You're gonna get us killed. He doesn't want to fuck you, Nat, he wants to decapitate you.

“Maybe. Maybe I'm into that,” Nat smirks. “You don't know me.”

Get us out of here! Find a way for him to let us go, before it's too late!

Nat licks her lips. She takes pleasure in my terror as she says, “You don't have the reins anymore, you pathetic bitch. I got you where I want you. And you can STAY there until I'm good and ready.”

No. No no no no. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I knew it. I fucking knew it.

I fight against her will, but she's too strong. I can't even lift a finger. All I can do is observe through her mind.

Don't you want to get out of this place? I ask. You love yourself too much. You're not suicidal, not like Lane.

“You mean not like YOU?” Nat laughs harshly, and I recoil with shock. “Poor, miserable Mel. Always on the run from things. This place should be a dream come true for you. For both of us. I'm gonna take my time, enjoy myself. Check off my bucket list.”

Nat, I try again. Look around. There's only death here. There's-

That's when I realize, it's what she wants. She thinks she can master her own death in this place. This is another thrill-seek for her. If she loses, she has the ride of her life. If she wins, she becomes master of her own fate. Maybe even gets rid of the other halves, including me, in the process.

What was it Grace said? There's another one. One that wants us dead. And it's not Natalie.

“You've gone awfully quiet,” Nat says, suspicious. “Are you still here?”

You know Grace? I ask. Grace Williams?

“No.”

I do. She's one of us. She's the oldest half.

And I tell Nat what Grace told me, while we were in the Morphogenic Engine.

“That does present a problem,” Nat admits. “But if that no-name twat shows her face, I can handle her. I don't need you, or anybody. I am gonna do me now. It's been SO long...”

I start panicking.

Nat, I have a bad feeling. Something is coming for us. Something inside of me is trying to break free. It has to do with the treatment. We don't look like Trager or the others, but the doctors said it worked, and I've been having these headaches, these visions. Can't you feel it too?

“Be QUIET,” Nat orders. She blasts me with mental energy, crashing down on me with sheer willpower. It's so strong, I'm crippled in the wake of it.

She hits me with another wave, narrowing my consciousness, putting blinders over my eyes.

“Get in the back of my head where you belong,” Nat hisses. “And STAY there.”

I have no choice but to obey, lying in wait. Her will is too strong to fight. All I can do is hang on and pray she lets her guard down, that she doesn't get us killed. I won't let Jessie and Dr. Hannigan and all the victims of this place die for nothing. I WILL use Jessie's program to destroy Murkoff.

 _You will endure worse_ , Jessie's words, relentless phantoms, come back to haunt me again, _before it gets better._


	13. Nat's Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Nat' takes over operations inside Mel. Trager tends to the certain needs of his first female patient.

We lay there for hours. Every so often, the moans and frantic screams of Trager's victims carry across the asylum. I can't tell if it's day or night. My outer prison consists of white tiles on the floor and walls, some of them speckled with blood spray. Bright, fluorescent lights shine down, crackling every so often. They heat Nat's skin, making her uncomfortable, but she ignores it. She's very good at tuning out unpleasant things.

She sings under her breath, “Coma tail quivering, knew all along...”

Some grungy, dark song that I know I've heard before, but can't place right now. She starts to nod off, humming to herself. Her fingers twitch, as if longing for a guitar to strum. Her eyelids lower.

That's when I strike.

Pushing with all my might, I try to move my hands, dig my nails into my palms. If I can feel pain, something with which to ping reality, maybe I can overpower her, take back control of my body. My nails bite into my skin.

Nat's eyes snap open. She forces me to look into the lights. The fluorescents sear our vision, blinding us.

“Nice try.” She cackles at my pain. “Something you should know about me: I have insomnia. I never sleep.”

She's lying. She's got to be. Everyone has to sleep at some point. And when she does, that's when I'll-

“I can HEAR you plotting,” Nat interrupts. Scoffs with disdain. “Idiot. Just crawl back into your hole.”

I silence my thoughts for now, but this isn't over.

“Who're you talking to in there?”

Trager's returned. Nat's senses flare to life, dopamine coursing through her veins. I panic, and slip as far back as I can into that hidden space, fleeing from our shared mind. It isn't enough. I can still sense what Nat feels. She's at the wheel, and I'm some sap who's along for the ride.

“Nobody,” Nat answers. Then, more suggestive: “Just entertaining myself.”

The door creaks open. Trager steps in, without his surgery cart. The bone shears are in his hand. He leans them against the wall and shuts the door. He's carrying something else. An old towel, or something that was once white. He throws it over one of the big wash sinks lining the walls. Nat doesn't seem too interested in it. She can't take her eyes off him.

Trager comes to the end of the table, grasping the restraints on her ankles. He's covered, up to his elbows, in someone's dried blood. I want nothing more than to draw away in revulsion. Nat's skin breaks out into goosebumps. She wants him to keep touching her.

“I see you've been good,” Trager remarks. “So I'm going to undo your ankle restraints. If you behave, show me I can trust you, I might do the rest. Okay?”

Nat nods her understanding. Trager tightens the first belt, releases the hook from its hole, and loosens the strap. His fingers leave flecks of blood on her white skin.

“I feel like I'm making progress. The arterial fragility presented a challenge at first, but with the proper sutures, and a steady hand...” he talks as he works, muttering medical nonsense, some real and some fake, things he must have picked up before his time here. Shit, he really DOES believe he's some sort of doctor, borne of a dimension of pure pain and suffering.

He mutters, “Had to make some tough calls today. But I think it was for the best.”

“How so?” Nat asks, intrigued.

He gets to her other ankle, and pauses. He says, with complete indifference, “One of my patients lost too much blood. Nicked his femoral artery, just the tiniest slip, really. Bled out like a stuck pig. That's what happens when they DON'T cooperate.”

Nat inhales sharply, savoring the details. “Then what happened?”

He looks up with his half-masked face. Says, with a touch of acidity, “He quit on me, before I could finish. Some people just give up too early.”

“I hate quitters,” she says, folding her free leg, splaying it to one side, exposing herself to him. “I like men with enthusiasm.”

He stops for a moment, drinking in the sight.

“I have an endless supply of that,” Trager says, rubbing the swell of her calf. Both of Nat's feet are free now. She flexes them a little, shuts her legs, then slides them back, lifting her knees in the air, feet pressed against the slab.

“Thanks,” she sighs. “I was getting a little antsy.”

I've had just about enough of this shitty, pseudo-porn talk, but what's a disembodied girl to do?

“I could use a breather myself,” Trager says. He leans across the table, over her legs. The slab's big enough for both of them to fit on. Nat smiles up at him. He's tempted, but he reconsiders, walking over to the sinks. He picks up the cloth and unfolds it.

It's a nurse's dress, an old mid-century one. The kind they make Halloween costumes after now, to the chagrin of parents everywhere. This one still has its brass name tag, but the name's been worn away with time.

“I had some real inspiration today,” he recalls fondly. I can only imagine he means while he was experimenting on someone. “I'm thinking you might make a good assistant. Could use another pair of hands around here. If you have the proper motivation, that is. It takes...a certain mind to perform my kind of work, you know?”

You mean like a bat-shit, twisted, perverted, sadistic mind? I think she's qualified.

She purrs up at him, “I think you'll like what I have to offer.”

Trager smirks. “Oh yeah? We'll see.”

Nat raises a pierced eyebrow. “How am I gonna put that thing on, if my hands are tied?”

“That depends on you.”

She giggles.

Trager says nothing, thinking. Some poor soul moans in pain, from a few rooms over.

He whips his head in the direction of the man. “You better shut up over there, or the tongue comes next!”

Silence.

“Come on, Trager.” Nat twists her body sensually, catching his gaze again. “Let me outta these straps, and I'll do whatever you want.”

Again, hope dangles in front of me, and I'm tempted to seize it. Nat seems awfully eager to get off the slab. But I no longer trust her motives. This can only go downhill.

Trager sets the dress down. “What's your rush, sweetheart?”

“Hmph.” Nat arches her back, growing impatient. She pouts, almost hurt, “So, you're just gonna stand there?”

Some weird bubble of tension breaks, and Trager strides to the end of the table. He grabs Nat unceremoniously by the thighs, stronger than he looks, and slides her down toward the edge. Her arms are fully extended; the restraints bite into her wrists, but she likes it, letting out a little cry of astonishment. She keeps her legs shut, her closed knees bent to the side.

Oh Jesus what the fuck is happening.

“I said I have to trust you first,” Trager repeats, in a low voice. He kneels, and parts her knees.

Oh my God, I think. No no no no no no fuuuuuck this.

“YES,” Nat inhales sharply, as Trager lowers his head between her thighs. He forces her legs open wider and brings his mouth just above her mound. Looks up at her. She's waiting with bated breath, her cheeks flushed. He presses his mouth hungrily against her, and starts going to work.

I can feel everything. Everything. Nat's slow, mounting pleasure. The cold stainless steel under her back, clouded by the heat of her body. Trager's tongue sliding across her clit, then farther down, penetrating her every so often, tasting her. He's not going slow, either, attacking her with a depraved kind of frenzy.

You fucking psychotic bitch I'll get you for this do you hear me Nat I said-

“Ah!” Nat gasps, her face growing hotter, heart rate speeding up. She rewards him with moans each time he does something right. I couldn't tell how long he went at it. I'm railing against my own mind, wishing I could black out. Nat's throbbing fiercely, walls tightening with tension, her sex swollen and sweetly tender. She arches her back again, and wraps her legs around Trager's neck. He responds by greedily holding onto her thighs, speeding things up.

The closer Nat gets to her climax, the more an odd, new sensation overwhelms me. It's as if I'm sinking into the metal slab, through my (((our))) body.

I try moving my leg. It works! I take my right leg off of Trager's shoulder and reel it back, ready to kick him off me.

“NO!” Nat screams, fighting against me. I freeze.

Bitch, give me back my leg.

“No?” Trager pulls his head away. His face is a medical horror I cannot look away from.

“Nothing. Don't stop!” Nat huffs, panting. “Keep going.”

I've lost control again. The leg goes back down over his shoulder and around his neck. Trager returns to his business with renewed enthusiasm. The little break in the routine's only amplified things. Nat arches and moans with pure, animal pleasure. His tongue strokes come stronger but slower. He hits her clit again and again. Her walls have flooded.

“Ahh, FUCK!”

Nat can't take much more. She lifts her bottom off the slab, and Trager grabs her ass with both hands from underneath, supporting her, pressing his face even farther into her. For a split second I think it's finally about to be over.

But before Nat can finish, Trager lifts his head abruptly. Wipes his mouth.

“Whoa there. We're getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren't we?” he teases. I think he must get off on denying people relief, likes to draw it out of them, control them. And Nat's no exception.

Her thighs quiver as he sets her back down. She unwraps her legs, her body languid.

“Jesus,” she says, breathless, heart thudding. “Why'd you stop?”

Trager mutters, “I'm not done with you yet.”

Nat doesn't appreciate being interrupted. The throbbing between her legs is receding. A white hot flash of anger coils in her mind, like a snake about to strike. Before she can protest, a man outside the room bellows,

“GOD DAMN IT TRAGER! Let her go!”

He must have heard Nat's shrieks, I realize. Nat's eyes widen. A smile cracks across her lips.

“SHE'S JUST A GIRL, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!”

The two look at each other and share a deranged laugh.

Someone, please, get me out of this nightmare.

Trager stands. He undoes the wrist restraints, and Nat sits up on the table, rubbing the feeling back into her hands.

“Sorry about that. I'll cut his tongue out later,” Trager says, more amused than annoyed.

Nat props herself on her elbows, tits up, nipples poking through tufts of silver and black hair trailing down her shoulders. Points her chin at him. The two regard each other for a minute, and it's hard for me to tell which one is crazier. Nat's filled with some kind of insane, insatiable hunger, a violent urge bubbling just under the surface. It's hard to tell what Trager's thinking, his face obscured by the goggles and mask.

“So, did I pass my test?”

“Aced it, Number One.” Trager grabs the nurse dress and throws it in her lap. “Put that on. We've got work to do.”

My mind races to a thousand different scenarios, each worse than the last. What kind of work? What the fuck is he going to make us do? How can she just go along with this?

Trager turns his back to Natalie while she changes, but it's a bit late for modesty. Another test? Or just his brain misfiring, telling him to be polite? Nat slides off the table, pulls the nurse's dress over her head. It's a few sizes too small, and stops just short of her upper thighs, barely covering her ass. Her breasts all but spill out of the open top, where the stitching has torn.

“How do I look?” she asks.

He turns around, and I can see the sight of the nurse uniform has a very (undesired) effect on him. His black apron's lifted off the floor a good bit. He grabs Nat, takes her by the hips, pressing his pelvis into hers so she can feel just how pleased he is.

“Does that answer your question?”

Nat smirks at his reaction and leans back against the table, crossing one leg over the other.

“I've been thinking,” she muses, placing a hand on his shoulder, the other trailing down to his crotch. She squeezes him through the fabric, feeling him up. She trails her other hand back and forth across his flesh. Then down his left arm, the one with the tube. She leans in and brings her lips close to his right ear.

Trager tenses. “Don't think too hard. It's bad for your health.”

“...thinkin' maybe I'm making this too easy for you,” Nat finishes. Before he can process what she's said, she yanks the needle out of his left arm, pulling on the plastic tube, hard. Dark blood spurts everywhere from the needle.

Trager stumbles back in shock. The needle dangles by his wrist, a steady stream of blood flowing out. Nat rushes to the door. The hinges are rusty, and it sticks.

Holy shit, what the fuck is she doing? Trying to get us killed?

“Bitch,” Trager growls. He claws at the needle and jams it back in. Whatever that thing does, it's important enough for him to take care of it before hunting us.

Nat gets the door open and runs down a hallway, passing a man strapped to a bed. There's nothing but blood between his legs, and he's missing his tongue. What's with all these monsters and cutting dude's dicks off? Whoever he is, he's been laying there a long time. His body has wasted away to bones.

That could be the fate that awaits us, if we stay here (minus the ball removal).

“Uuuhhhn!” the poor creature moans at Nat. “Uhn!”

Run.

Trager slams the door, hefting the bone shears. He slices them in the air once with a metallic scraping sound.

“Where are you going, Number One? We're not done!” he laughs, humorless, insane.

Nat silently pushes a set of swaying doors open, slipping all but her head inside. Trager starts walking the other way. Maybe we can get out of this yet. But Nat's not done with him, either.

“Getting colder!” she calls to him, then backs into the next room. Turns around. And we both see firsthand just what Trager's been up to at his new 'practice'.

Nat's standing in some sort of recovery room, no longer living up to its name. Five 'patients' lay, incapacitated, stuck in various states of torture. They're all strapped down, as she was only a few moments ago. One has his leg in a spiked vice, rusted poles jammed into his tendons and through the bone. The other's missing his legs entirely, and his tongue, and his testicles. One appears to be dead, having bled out from a wound in his inner thigh, the mattress dyed red. Two more are strapped down and relatively unharmed: they're just missing a few of their fingers.

Streaks of blood across the checkered tiles. Rags, syringes, fluids, tourniquets, and teeth all over the floor. Business is booming. Nat gawks at everything like a child at the toy store.

“Thank God! Help me!” one of them begs as she walks by. “Get me outta here! This guy's fucking nuts!”

She poises over him. She strokes his hairless head, runs her fingers over the bumps broken out on his skin from the infection.

“Shhh,” she comforts him. Her finger pokes one of his blisters, and it pops, blood and pus oozing down the side of his face. “Shhh. The doctor will see you shortly!”

The man yelps, pulls away, shaking all over. “The fuck are you saying? You're crazy, too?”

“Don't you know where you are?” Nat laughs cruelly. She runs into the adjacent room, as Trager enters the previous one.

He shouts, “I know you're in here! Don't give up on me like the rest!”

Chills of excitement radiate from Nat. She's starting to really love this game of theirs. And she's still very much aroused, enjoying the thrill of being chased. She stands still for a minute, panting like a creature in heat, before searching the beds. A few dying, dismembered patients reside in here.

Hide, hide, hide, I urge her silently. Whatever you're thinking, it's not gonna be good. HIDE.

Nat crawls under a bed, which is occupied by a fresh corpse. She licks her lips as Trager enters the room. It's nearly pitch black, with a few scant pools of light over some of the beds. She can see his shadowed outline.

“You in here, Number One?”

Slice of the bone shears. Nat bites her lip.

Trager checks under the bed next to ours. He's getting way too close for comfort.

MOVE! I scream at her. GO!

She crawls on hands and knees under the next bed, and then the one after that. Trager checks the next one. There are three more beds to go until we get to the doors. But Nat wont' move. She scared, but the fear enthralls her like no drug ever could.

Trager starts walking over to her bed. The shears clack, like the beak of a giant metal bird.

Nat, I cry. Keep going! There are more beds! What are you doing?

I look with horror as Trager's feet stop just before her. Nat holds her breath.

“Nobody likes a quitter!” Trager huffs. He starts to walk away. “Should've known...”

Nat giggles.

Trager spins around. A bolt of terror hits me.

“Got you!”

He seizes Nat's ankle, yanking her out from under the bed with vicious strength. She doesn't scream as she slides across the floor. Instead, she laughs, shrill, high-pitched, breathless. Laughs, and laughs, and laughs, to the point where she makes herself dizzy.

“You crazy slut,” Trager swears lustily, grabs her by the hair, jerks her head back. The shears open and press against her jugular, trapping her neck in a vice. “I ought to euthanize you. I really outta do it.”

Except he doesn't.

My mind spins in tight circles. I've lost all sense, like an animal with its leg trapped in a snare, and I'm looking for a way to chew it off.

“Now where's the fun in that?” Nat pants. Her breasts, swelling out of the nurse dress, rise and fall, drawing his attention. She grabs at his wrist clutching her hair, digging her nails into him.

“Gimme my meds, Doc,” she pleads. Demands.

The shears tighten around her neck. For a sickening moment, I think it's all over. Then...

“Get on the bed,” he orders. He lowers the shears, but keeps them at his side. He still means business.

Nat obeys, climbing onto the mattress. Trager, still holding the shears in one hand, gets on after her.

“Turn around.”

She does. Bites her lip again. The throbbing ache between her legs is back in full force.

Please, God, by all that's holy, get me out of here, I beg. Please. But there's no answer from the man upstairs.

Trager rips his apron off and hooks his arm around Nat's waist. Her burns sting at his rough touch. She cries out in shock, but this only excites them both even more. He pushes down on top of her, pressing her into the mattress with his torso, his cock brushing between her bare thighs. Nat keeps her head and shoulders down, gripping the bed frame. She's inviting him, rubbing her hips against him.

Just fuck my entire life. Fuck everything. Fuck this world. Fuck this gay earth. I'm done.

“Fuck me already!” Nat begs.

Trager laughs at her frustration and hikes up her dress, his movements quick, frantic, driven by primal urges that even his chemically-altered brain remembers. He slides his cock inside her, savoring the slight resistance, driving it deeper. Nat presses up against his body with a drawn out moan. Then he really starts giving her what she's been after this whole time. She savors each thrust, the fullness, the pressure.

I can't take it anymore. A void opens behind me, a black hole tearing through the universe. Nat and her monstrous lover don't seem to notice. It sucks me in slowly, ripping me free from my mortal coil, my flesh prison. I see the shadows of two people screwing in frenzied motions on a bed, no longer first-person view. The shadows change positions, the smaller one on the bottom, wrapped around the larger one.

For the first time in my life, I'm grateful for the blackout.

But as darkness surrounds me, I don't disappear. Instead, a cold hand grasps mind, pulling me deeper into the rift.


	14. Winners and Losers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel receives some unsettling news. The morphogenic effects put a damper on Nat's depraved plans for herself and Trager.

The hand grasping mine leads me into a small, dreary room, not much bigger than a closet. I glance behind me. The wall's closed up, no sign of Nat or Trager or the hell of the recovery room. This one isn't real. The walls look like they're crawling with millions of tiny black insects. Ants? Or Hilda Herzog's little, chewing demons? A single, square window lets in greenish light, of a hue that doesn't exist in nature. It makes me uneasy, vulnerable, but anything's better than being stuck in Nat's body.

And I'm not alone. Sitting crosslegged on the floor, still in her medical gown, is Grace. And leading me by the hand...

“We gotta be quick,” Ellen says, aggravated. “The longer we're in here, the closer SHE gets.”

There's a giant purple bruise on the side of her head, where the door crashed on her at the admin block. Her one eye socket is completely useless, the eye swollen shut. I guess she didn't totally escape Walker unscathed.

Then I notice Grace doesn't look much better. There are scrapes all over her hands and knees, and a crimson stain in her dress, over her heart. What's happening to them?

“Who's getting closer?” I ask, swallowing needles.

“You already know,” Grace pipes from the floor. “Haven't you dreamed about her?”

Ellen picks Grace up and puts her on her hip. Either the two knew each other already, or they've recently met in this place.

Flashing images erupt behind my eyes: haunting visions, the traumatic memories of the women in the female ward. Moths wings fluttering in chaotic, random madness. I blink it away. The other two rub their eyes as well, seeing the same things.

“She's like a witch,” I say at last. “The one with the claws for fingers. Like tree branches.”

“Her feet never touch the ground,” Grace murmurs, quoting _The Blair Witch Project._ “You watched that movie with Lane, remember? You two used to argue about what she looked like, cuz they never show her.”

“So she's my childhood fear? Brought to life somehow?” I suck in a shallow breath, “by the Morphogenic Engine!”

“Murkoff calls 'em Variants,” Ellen says, rubbing the side of her injured head. “The ones who have changed by way of that thing. SHE'S one of 'em. But we got bigger problems, sister.”

Grace bursts into a coughing fit, her little shoulders heaving. Ellen rubs her back. I didn't realize she could be so motherly.

“What's happened to you two?” I ask. “You both look like hell.”

“Nevermind that!” Ellen snaps. One of her front teeth is broken. “We gotta deal with Natalie!”

She puts both hands over Grace's ears so she cannot hear. Hisses at me, “The bitch has a death wish. She gets off on this torture shit.”

“But she doesn't want to die,” I argue. “She's too self-absorbed for that!”

Ellen shakes her head, still blocking Grace's ears. Grace's eyes are glassy, as if she's sick with a fever.

“That's what Nat wants,” Ellen explains, contemptuous. “It's the ultimate trip for her. And she's tired of us. Dying would be the ultimate 'fuck you'. She got that idea from you, by the way.”

I wince, my eyes darting to the scars on my wrists. “I'm sorry. It's just, you don't know what it's like, never having control of your life.”

The two of them fall silent. Or maybe, they do know. I shut my mouth.

Ellen's remaining eye narrows. She continues quickly, “Her and Trager's little fuck games are gonna get worse n' worse. He's plannin' on killing her, eventually. Once he's had his fun.”

My stomach balls into a knot. “She know that?”

“I think so.”

“What can we do?” I look around the room again, feeling weak, powerless. The walls are growing more animated, the ants crawling faster, covering the window now, casting tiny shadows that crawl over us.

“Where ARE we?”

Grace pulls away from Ellen. “Don't you recognize it? It was our room at Stonewall. I made this place for us, to keep us safe.”

“MY room,” I tell her. “You don't exist.

”Grace's eyes fill with tears. “Don't you say that!”

“Hush!” Ellen snaps. “Both of you, shut it. We have t-”

A single, gray moth peels away from the wall. Its fluttering wings produce a light, airy sound. It circles wildly around the room, like a bat. A messenger...or a spy.

“She's coming!” Grace shrieks, burying her face in Ellen's neck. “Ellen, I'm scared!”

Ellen holds her close. It's so unlike her, to be this afraid. I didn't think she feared anything. I was wrong.

“You have to do it,” Ellen tells me. “You're the strongest of us.”

She's wrong. I've never been strong, my entire life. All I do is run from things.

“No, I'm not!” I protest. “You are!”

Ellen shakes her head again. What she says next, she says with a tightness in her throat, almost tearful, “All that shit about killing truckers, the female prisoners. It's a lie. I never killed nobody. It was a front, see. People think you're a killer, they respect you. They fear you. But I'm more like you, Mel. I take the money and run.”

More moths peel away from the wall. They buzz around my head. I bat one away, and its body explodes on my arm where I've touched it. Leaves me with some kind of nasty chemical burn.

“Shit!” I cry out. How can I be hurt in this place?

Ellen ducks under the swarm, protecting Grace. She says, “She'll need a fix she can't get from Trager soon. She's an addict, Mel. Don't forget that. Convince her to git her fix, and when the time comes, you HAVE to take control.”

I yell, “I tried that already! She's too strong!”

“She'll get strung out, don't worry,” Ellen assures me. Hunching, she runs through the moth swarm, til she's close to me. Hisses through her teeth as the moths burn her. Grace whimpers and cries.

“Do it, and get that damn journal back from Father Martin!” Ellen shouts over the swarm of wings. “It's our only way outta Mount Massive! I don't know if we'll ever see each other again. Something's happened, something bad.”

“We're dying, arent we?” Grace sobs.

Ellen hushes her, yells to me, “So you best do what I say! Get that journal, launch Jessie's code if you can, but get the hell OUT!”

“A-all right!” I stammer. The moths have taken over. They slam into Ellen, black patches breaking out all over her body. Grace cries shrilly. A few hit her as well, tainting her white dress with black burn marks, eating away at her like embers to paper. The entire room is rotting, falling apart.

Ellen stands up and pushes me on the collar bone, hard. I tip backward, into thin air. Sinking through the floor, I fall way from them, from the insect room.

Oblivion rushes past me in dizzying, sickening torrents. Then, I drop into something warm, something real.

“Welcome back. Have a nice trip?”

Nat's laying on the mattress, no sign of Trager. She's curled up with her arm propped under her head, satisfied with herself. A little sore, but that comes with the territory. She's already thinking about what game she wants to play next. An image pops into my brain: a huge, metal needle, jamming into soft flesh below the navel.

Nat sighs dreamily.

From the other room come the noises of Trager's 'work': groans, pleads for mercy, the wet, soft, snip of tools.

She rolls over on the bed, staring up the ceiling. Her head is swimming, fuzz prickling at the corners of her eyes. Sure enough, she's craving something else. Now's my chance.

You seem uneasy, I say to her. What's bothering you? Maybe I can help.

“None of your business,” Nat says under her breath. I brace myself for her mental assault, but it doesn't come. I quietly wrack my brain, remembering what Ellen told me. I do think I saw a medicine cabinet in the exam room, when I first met Trager. It looked modern, with blue lights on the inside. The doctor had prepared a sedative for me there. Maybe it's still around.

Keeping my tone conversational, I say to her: I've been here before, you know. In the exam room. The doctor stuck me with this drug. It was fucking wild. Unlike anything I've ever heard of.

“Thiopental? Methohexital?” Nat asks. “K? Lithium? Droperidol?”

Dunno. It was like ecstasy, and something else. Made me trip hard, but I could control what I was seeing. And I felt everything...like being in my own virtual reality.

“Whatever.” Nat frowns. “I 've had it all. Been there, done that.”

She throws her hand in the air, dismissing me. It's then I notice the black, chemical wound on her arm, like a streak of ash. God...if those moths can hurt us for real, I don't wanna find out what else is coming for us. I have to speed this up. Time to switch from the good shoulder angel, to the bad one.

I insist: Nat, it's none of that stuff, trust me. It's some next-level shit. The kind that changes you. I've never used, but god damn, even I know it was insane. Some new psych drug Murkoff's developing. This exec told me patients were breaking into their stores for it. And I know where to get it.

Nat sits up. “Really?”

Honest. You should try it. Could be a blast.

She glares at the ceiling. “Why should I trust you? You just wanna trick me.”

Maybe, I say, indifferent. But maybe you're missing out on the greatest trip of your life. In a place like this. Shame.

Her lip trembles. She thinks at me, in case Trager is listening: _Fine_. _Where's it at?_

I'll tell you where to go, step by step. It's close by, I say. And it's got supplies Trager would very much like to get his hands on.

I make up some shit about medical equipment. For all I know, the room's filled with balloons by now.

Nat doesn't move at first. But the temptation has already wormed its way into her. Her skin has broken out in a fine layer of sweat. She gets off the bed. It squeaks loudly as she moves.

“Nurse?” Trager yells from the open door. “Nurse! Get in here!”

God damn it.

 _Guess it'll have to wait,_ Nat thinks to me, smug. She clucks her tongue, spins on her heel, and heads into the recovery room. The man that begged us to let him go earlier is under a light, with Trager bent over his head. Nat saunters over, hips swaying in her nurse's dress.

“Yes, doctor?”

Trager, his hands occupied inside the man's mouth, points to a tray of medical instruments. “Jar.”

Nat takes a glass sample jar, filled with formaldehyde. She holds it next to him. Trager's got the wretch's tongue clamped in a pair of surgical tongs. He takes a scalpel and slices it at the base, sawing at the thick membrane, pulling at veins, gristle. His victim wails, then starts choking on blood and saliva.

The tongue pulls free, pink and shiny, like a fat slug. Trager drops it inside the jar. It sinks to the bottom with a thud.

The man wails in pure agony, the worst sound a person can make. I despair, helpless. There's nothing I can do.

Trager taps the wretch's forehead with the bloody tongs. “You know, you weren't using it anyway. Now I've got something to use for my stamps.”

He chuckles darkly at the joke, storing it away for use later. He paws with his free hand for Nat, grabbing her by the waist, and pulls her close. Gives her rump a squeeze.

“Easy on the eyes, isn't she? Take a good look. You won't be seeing anything for much longer.”

Nat puts a hand on her hip and leers down at the man. His eyes are wide, delusional with pain, but still very much conscious.

This would be SO much better on that drug, I whisper to her. Like, a thousand times more fun, Nat.

“Okay!” she says aloud, annoyed. “Fine, I'll do it.”

“What?” Trager looks up from his seat. His rigid body language suggests he doesn't appreciate being interrupted.“You talkin' to yourself again?”

“Sorry,” she says, shrugging. She rests her hand on his shoulder, the one without the transfusion tube. He's a little more wary of her touch now. She says, “I was just thinking, there's a room near here with all kinds of drugs. Might spice things up a bit.”

Trager lets her go, picking up a surgical saw. He says icily, “I'm a bit busy at the moment. Why don't you go lie back down until I'm ready for you? You're thinkin' too much.”

I whisper something to Nat. For once, she listens to me. She clucks her tongue, and shrugs her shoulder at the corpses on the beds. “You're good, babe, but not THAT good, yet. At this rate you're gonna run out of patients. And those fuckers run fast, believe me.”

Trager slams the saw down with a clang.

She rubs his shoulder, and adds softly, “I could get some meds for you. More syringes, some IV's. I know how to set them up. We can keep them around longer that way.”

Trager knows she's right. All but two of the 'patients' are dead or lost to an anemic coma.

“All right. Go. But if you aren't back here in ten minutes, I'm hunting you down,” he warns. All banter has left his voice. The threat's serious. He reaches out and tucks his hand around her thigh, grabbing onto the meat. Glances at the bone shears, draped across his lap.

“And if I catch you, I'll stab you again, in a way you're not gonna like. Got it?”

Nat beams at him, as if she would enjoy that. “Got it.”

He smacks her ass. “Good! Now get going. I gotta close this deal, sell this guy the dream.”

With that, Nat skips—actually skips, like she's at the fucking circus—out of the recovery room. Pushes past the double doors.

Go left, I tell her.

She turns, wrenches a door open, turns right. This is a hallway I don't recognize, but I feel like we're close. We pass a room full of lockers. The hallway's littered with junk, the occasional dead body. Some are decayed to the point where I can't tell if they're staff or patients anymore. It's been happening for a while, I realize. They would just shut off parts of the asylum and leave them there to rot. What the actual fuck?

The hallway's blocked, so we climb up and through a series of ceiling vents, and drop down into an empty recovery room, into the foulest miasma to ever reach my nose.

Jesus, you smell that?

“Rotting flesh,” Nat says, sniffing the air. “So what?”

We're close.

Following her nose, Nat finds the exam room with the medicine fridge. The dead doctors are now a rotting pile of meat, crawling with maggots. The dead patient (birthday boy), that Ellen killed is also still on the floor. The boxcutter's not far from him. On the counter are boxes of fresh IV bags and bandages, plenty of anesthesia and numbing concoctions in the fridge. But Nat's not getting anything until she's had her fix.

She stomps across the room, bare-footed, ignoring the wriggling mass of putrid gore below.

“Where is it?” she demands. “If this is a trick, I swear to God, I will go back there right now and make you watch as I get down on my knees and-”

I interrupt her threat: Check by the gurney. It's got to be on the floor.

Nat searches the floor underneath, and finds it. It's full of clear liquid. She eyes it suspiciously.

“This looks like a tranquilizer,” she hisses. “I don't believe you. This WAS some sort of trick, wasn't it?”

I do my best shoulder-devil impression: Awww, you scared, Nat? What's the worst that could happen? If it's a tranq, we'll just pass out. Trager will find us, see we weren't trying to run away. You'll wake up to a surprise from him, maybe, but you like surprises. Those doctors there on the floor, they got their surprise.

Nat's lips thin as she scowls. The hand holding the needle trembles a little.

“Cheers,” she says. She takes the syringe and plunges it into her upper arm. Immediately, her vision goes blurry. She shuts her eyes, thinking the dose hasn't hit her yet.

I pounce down on her with all my strength. I fight for control of my hands, one of which still grasps the needle.

Nat slurs, swaying back and forth, “You fuckin' cunt. I knew it.”

We fight for control of our hands. Shaking, pushing, I take the needle and jam it harder into my skin. The sharp, intense pain keeps me grounded, focused. Nat grits her teeth and fights back. She throws herself on the gurney, writhing around. In her rage she jerks the needle out of her arm, throwing it across the room, where it shatters. Her fingers are clumsy, and the hand drops to her side. She can't overwhelm me like she did earlier. The drug's taking effect.

Swooping in, I seize full control, for the moment. I wiggle my fingers and toes, then clench my hands into fists. God, it's good to be back.

When I look up, Nat's out of body, crouched on the floor. Her face is contorted with fury, her eyes bugging out of her head, mouth carved into a deep snarl. She's no longer wearing the nurse dress, but her tight goth getup. At last, I understand: she's just a projection. She's still in my mind. This is how I CHOOSE to see her.

She can't hurt me anymore. Whatever the morphogenic engine did, it's breaking my personas down, one by one.

“Go away,” I command her, my chest heaving from the struggle. My tongue is heavy and numb from the tranq. “Don't come back!”

“You,” Nat growls, rising off the floor. The box cutter's in her hand now. She takes slow, deliberate steps toward me.

“No. You can't. It's my body. MINE.”

Why isn't she going away? Why can't I banish her like she does me?

“GIVE IT BACK!” Nat screams, lunges at me with the box cutter.

She aims for my neck, but the blade glances off my collar bone. The pain comes fast, cutting through the haze of the tranq. This is still real, somehow. I gasp, rolling off the gurney, and run for the door. Blood runs through my fingers where she slashed me. Actually bleeding. How is this possible?

I run, but the drug slows me down. Nat stumbles into the wall behind me, her breath coming in slow rasps. As if all of time has stopped, I seem to freeze in the hallway, with Nat just behind me. Then the box cutter whizzes through the air again. Slices the back of my dress.

I slam into the wall to avoid the blade. A reflection in a glass window catches my eye.

Nat's image: her arm raising the boxcutter again. My terrified eyes as I run from her.

I turn and look back.

No one there.

Look down.

No blade in my hands, but the blood on my dress is real. The boxcutter is on the floor where Nat was standing.

Look back up at the window. Nat's staring out at me, mouth open in shock. She's trapped in there. And she isn't alone.

The moth swarm descends on her. As she swats at hundreds of soft, acidic bodies, her skin turning ashen, something—either in the darkened room behind the window, or in the glass itself, I can't tell—grabs Nat by the throat. Inky, black hands with long, gnarled nails like tree branches, wrap around her. One sharpened tip pierces her neck, then another, until her entire throat's full of holes. Another claw bursts one her eyeballs, juices rolling down her cheek.

Nat can't even scream. The moths are flying, crawling into her mouth, choking her with their soft bodies.

I rub my own throat, mortified. But I'm unharmed.

In the glass reflection, next to Natalie's head, a face appears, or rather, half a face. The figure is wearing half of a bone mask, depicting dueling emotions: the mouth grinning in wicked amusement, the eye socket drawn into a sorrowful, baleful stare. The other side of their face is shrouded in shadow and covered by long, flowing gray hair. A single, red pinpoint for an eye roves from within the mask. Settles on me.

It's her. The Variant. The one with no name.

She regards me for a moment, that single red eye connecting with mine. For a few frightening seconds, I think I'm next, she's going to reach through the glass, pull me in. Then, with one last convulsion from Nat, she drags her prey into the black beyond, vanishing.

Silence in the hallway. It's done. I don't know how, but Nat's gone for good. Relief washes over me, more freeing than any drug. I cry tears of joy.

Then, as if someone's let in a freezing wind, chills rake down my spine. The metallic snipping noise echoes from the end of the hallway. The shadow of an elongated, sharp tool slithers around the corner, followed by a much larger figure. Everything seems to move in blips, like an old silent film.

“Number One, I'm so disappointed,” Trager's sad words cut through the silence. His bone shears scrape against the wall, setting my teeth on edge. He starts running. The shadows race past me, and I see him stalking around the corner.

“There you are!” he shouts with sinister glee.

I'm not going back, not gonna die here. I won't be the one to kill this motherfucker. I probably can't even help the people he's captured. But I still have a role to play in all this. Jessie said so. I know so.

Spinning around, my hand slaps the boxcutter and picks it up. I can't go back through the vents, so I'm forced to run, trying different rooms.

“Don't take it personally, sweetheart!” Trager says from behind. His voice is calm, yet it carries throughout the asylum. “Gonna have to cut you loose! We've run the numbers, done the math, and there's no room for you to invest!”

I have no choice but to hide under a bed again, in the same room Nat dropped down into. No way I'm reaching those vents, though. Trager walks in, starts checking under the beds.

“Had such high hopes for you,” he sighs. With each check, he swings the shears back, ready to dice my flesh into human sushi. “Thought I found someone special. Someone who finally gets me.”

I crawl to the next bed, and the next. But I don't escape. I have to slow this bastard down, give myself time to find another way out of the male ward.

His feet stop at my bed. Before he can check, I take the box cutter and stab at his right foot. I forget I'm high as a kite, and my movements are too sluggish.

I'm not fast enough. I miss my mark, and the shears swipe the box cutter out of my hands, bashing me. I draw my hand back, yelping in pain.

“You should've improved your game,” Trager growls, grabbing a handful of my hair, yanking me to my feet. I kick and struggle, but my movements are too loose, too languid. He holds me close. His cyborg-mummy face with the surgeon mask distorts for a moment like Munch's _The Scream_.

“Any last words?” he asks me. The shears close in, their cold tips resting on my belly. “If it makes you feel any better, I won't forget you.”

“FUCK-” I choke out.

“You can do better than that!” He yanks my head back harder.

“-YOU.”

I rip out his tourniquet needle and stab him in the ear with it. I was aiming for his eye, but this works, too. He drops me with a grunt of pain, and I land hard on my side, cracking a rib. I start crawling away, gasping for air that won't come.

He pulls the needle out, lets it hang as blood drips, takes the shears in both hands. Brings them down full force.

Unimaginable agony explodes from my left leg. He's pierced me through the meat of my calf, barely missing the bone. I scream, louder and harder than I ever have in my life. I can't move, can't think, can't breathe.

“Not letting you go that easily!” Trager shouts, giving the shears a savage twist.

The muscles in my calf are torn, broken. I cry out again, my throat ragged, curling into a fetal ball.

“Not my Number One!”

For some reason, his nickname brings me out of my pain-induced delirium. I scream, “My name is Mel!”

I just wanted to speak it again, before the end. My voice has changed. Realization dawns on him, but he doesn't care who I am. All he knows is that I have to die.

The shears lift again, cords standing out in Trager's neck and arms. He aims for my chest cavity. I time it as best as I can. The hard, deadly beak plunges down, seeking soft parts, and I roll to the side. My hand lands on something cold, hard. The shears crunch into the floor tiles, missing me by inches.

Grunting, he brings them back up in an instant, but I'm already rising to my feet, the boxcutter recovered in my hands. I slice at the pack on his left arm. This time, I don't miss. Fluids gush out of it, a chemical cocktail of blood, IV fluid, and more. Trager gurgles and drops the shears in dismay, clawing at the pack, as his life support steadily drains.

“I'm Mel,” I say again, panting. The tranq and my body's own trauma response have reduced the pain in my calf. For the moment, I can move.

I raise the box cutter, telling him, “The girl you knew, Natalie, is dead. She played a game with me and lost.”

“The game isn't over yet,” Trager snarls, lurching toward me. Reaching for me. But his left arm hangs, useless.

Taking the box cutter, I drive the blade as hard as I can into his gnarled abdomen. It's not enough to kill him. He doubles over, groaning. Grabs for the box cutter with weak fingers. I jerk my hand back, step away, and limp on my good leg for the door, dripping blood across the tiles.

“Should've euthanized you!” Trager raves, but doesn't chase after me, too weak from blood loss. He's collapsed onto a bed, the shears on the floor. “When I had the chance!”

I keep moving, staring straight ahead.

His howls follow me out the door. “We could've been great, Number One! Could've gone ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP!”

“Oh, fuck off, you freak,” I mutter, and limp my way down the corridor. I retrace his steps and find my way back to a section I recognize, by the elevator. I glance behind me, one last time, but Trager is long gone.

The courtyard is inviting me outside. I could use some fresh air. Think I'll go for a little stroll in the moonlight.

I glance down at the bloody boxcutter in my left hand.

Yes, go for a stroll, and after that, have a final word with Father Martin.


	15. Birth by Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel learns the truth behind the Variant breakouts. Her encounter with Father Martin goes awry, and the Variant stalking Mel's inner mind emerges.

Father Martin stands before the center window in the cafeteria, on the second floor above admin block. He watches the rain patter against the glass. His hands are clasped behind his stained, black vestments. The Father likes to come to this room to think, alone. Even a mind bent and broken by the morphogenic engine still turns its wheels, in its own new, reprogrammed fashion. Greasing those wheels is an intent, a will to bring the fire and fury of the heavens down on his enemies, the demons who put him here.

He didn't always see them that way. Once, they looked like ordinary people: doctors, therapists, orderlies. Once, he was ordinary, too. A purpose-driven man of God, or at least he tells himself that. But a filter has been placed over his eyes, stapled to his sockets, for eternity. It only lets in shadow now, never any light, except what burns brightly within the funeral pyres.

Father Martin likes it when things burn, like a moth drawn to its own demise.

Rainwater trickles down the glass. The sun has just gone down, the Colorado mountains in the distance no longer visible, wrapped tight in night's cloak. Even the word 'Colorado' is foreign to him now, an echo out of a past life.

Martin knows he owes his faith to the machine. That is something the Murkoff demons did right. God sent him into the belly of a whale, and he came out stronger than ever before, championing a vision, a cause. A revolution. Others have seen it, too. Some even wrote it down. The Gospel of Father Martin, he's already calling it.

He came to this place, powerless, a man of physical, even carnal desires. They processed him as a patient, spit in his face, called him a freak, but he came out with all the control, all the power he could ever ask for. With a little help along the way, of course.

His hand pats the journal tucked into his robes. At his feet is a bucket full of blood. His fingers are stained red. He's already begun marking the way, spreading the Word for future pilgrims.

The door to the cafeteria creaks on rusted hinges. The twin Variants, carrying their knives, enter from the kitchens. Though they're completely naked, smeared with the filth of their unspeakable forays in the asylum, they show nothing but respect to Father Martin, stopping a few feet short out of reverence. They each take a knee.

In the doorway, a group of male Variants peer inside, watching, listening. They crowd into the room, slowly.

There are some Apostles present, too, but they no longer hear or see anything. Ten dead women, some still swollen with false pregnancy, many riddled with bullet holes, are lined in rows along the floor, forming an aisle of death, leading to Father Martin. Candles have been placed next to their lifeless forms.

“Not much longer now. These few weeks to come will be key,” Father Martin announces, still facing the window.

“But the Walrider is still asleep,” one of the twins grunts.

The other says impatiently, “When is he going to wake? The Murkoff grunts aren't making our work easy.”

The first one adds, “There are still sections we can't get to. The hospital wing and prison are heavily patrolled.”

Father Martin whips around, venomous hatred in his eyes.

“Doubting Thomas!” he spits, with uncharacteristic anger. He lifts his gaze to the Variants sneaking outside, knowing they hang on his every word. “Have you no respect? Look what the armed sentinels did to our precious Apostles! Shot down, like rabid dogs. My poor, precious sheep.”

He kneels down and strokes the ragdoll face of Jessie Holmes. They recovered her body, dragged her out of vocational, when the many-voiced prophet failed to return with her. A few members of his flock fell to Gluskin's blade, another blood offering to the Lord. He kisses Jessie's forehead, tongue poking between his lips to taste the salt on her skin. He had such plans for Jessie, but the Devil had other ideas.

“I comforted them all in their time of need,” he says, starting out with a mumble, rising to a roar as he stands. “I have predicted ALL of this! And STILL you doubt me!”

“No!” the Variants in the doorway hiss. Some of them shrink back, fearing he will set the twins on them.

“Never!”

“Not me!”

“Only God's true faithful will have their absolution!” Martin preaches emphatically. “Yet I hear whispers! Any man who thinks of leaving us, GO! Visit the heretic doctor for your cure. Or perhaps you'd rather quench the thirst of the Sodomite in vocational? I hear he's looking for a new bride. Any of you want to volunteer?”

He picks up the bucket of blood and hurls it across the room, splattering it at the feet of his congregates.

“Maybe I should have Walker tear you all to pieces,” Father Martin mutters. “And burn this entire place to the ground. God stays my hand...but I just might.”

The twins exchange worried glances.

“We need to release the Walrider,” one insists. “Then we can get past the guns.”

The other adds, “Then you can convert the men in the prison and hospital. There must be another way to summon him.”

Father Martin rubs his temples, sighing with the burden of his flock. He glances at Jessie's lifeless body.

“The Lamb was lost. The Sodomite killed her, along with her precious cargo.”

“So what now?” the twins ask in unison.

Father Martin grins. He reaches out and caresses the jaws of the twins. Pats them.

“Don't you worry, my sons. The bleats of the dying Lamb would have surely awoken the Walrider from his slumber. But there are other ways to call him.”

He addresses the crowd of Variants now. He opens his arms wide, saying:

“ALL of you, hear me! The many-voiced prophet is to blame for our suffering at the hands of Murkoff and the unbelievers! I used to call her a saint, for she freed the demon slayers from their water-prisons! How many Murkoff insects were stomped under the boot of Walker, thanks to her? How many unbaptized fell to the spear of the heretic? She even released some of YOU!”

It was me.

From my hiding spot in the cafeteria air vents, I gasp. I clap my hands over my mouth, praying no one hears. Swallowing, I fight the urge to puke. He's got Jessie's body down there; he fucking kissed her forehead. I'm starting to think she was better off dying the way she did. Maybe I'd be better off dead, too.

Father Martin's not done throwing me under the bus yet.

He raves, “In her disbelief, her DOUBT, she let the Lamb die! It withered in Jessie's womb! And like a coward, she ran from us. But she is still alive! We must find her, make her scream and suffer for her sins. Her lamentations will wake the Walrider, and we will know salvation!”

The Variants rave and cheer, throwing their fists in the air. There's at least a two-dozen of them now, their faith in Father Martin renewed, by the sound of it.

And they mean to torture and kill me. Same old story. But here I am, trapped in the vent like a rat. I need to get the Father alone.

I'm still in shock from his revelation, but I have a feeling now, an inkling of truth. Lane must have set the Variants free and caused the blackouts. She knew where to go, what to do. And the map from her adventure is in that journal. MY journal.

“Go forth! Bring her to me!” Father Martin commands. “But do not wander into the sentinel territories, my sons! They still have their guns. But the time will soon come when we drink blood from their helmets, and whet the altars with their entrails! Now GO!”

This excites the Variants even more. They run out of the cafeteria, hooting and shouting. Some of them brandishing knives, pipes.

I'm not worried about them yet. I keep my eyes on the twins. They get to their feet, hefting their knives.

“And now, my sons, I must ask you to escort me to my quarters,” Father Martin commands. His voice is trembling with desire. “I need to...convene with our Lord.”

The twins exchange knowing looks again, but they lead him out of the cafeteria. It really burns me up, seeing someone so pious manipulate these...things. They were people once, I remind myself. I look down at my own hands, bloody, but human. Mortal, fragile.

Backing out of the vent, I turn back the way I came. No one in the kitchen, but the lights are on. I drop down on top of a refrigerator and cat-climb down, landing with a soft thud, but it doesn't matter how careful I am. It sends pain shooting up my injured leg anyway. Damn that Trager, I hope he's suffering, wherever he is.

Grinding my teeth, I lean on my good leg and limp in the direction that Father Martin left. Peek around the corner. See the naked backsides of the twins at the end of the hallway, turning down another corridor. Their knives wink at me, as if daring me to come closer.

They see him into his room, and head down the opposite end of the hall, rounding a corner. Probably to guard the elevator and stairs.

I stumble down the hallway. Listen, outside Father Martin's door, pressing my ear to it.

“Mmm mm mmm-mmm hmm,” he hums his eerie gospel song. He sits down in a chair, which squeaks under his weight. For a seconds, I hear nothing.

“God, speak to me now,” he mutters suddenly, his voice raspy, urgent. “Speak to me, speak to me, speak to me.”

The chair squeaks, over and over and over.

Frowning, I tighten my grip on the box cutter and turn the doorknob slowly. It's unlocked. I know I'm not gonna like what I find when I open it, but I have to be fast.

Cracking the door, I look inside. I see the left half of Father Martin's body, his arm and leg. He's sitting in a chair at a desk. His left hand is jerking up and down in his lap. He moans a little with pleasure. Weirdly, I can't see he his head, which he must have cocked to the right.

I guess that little violent speech of his riled him up. Not very Christ-like.

I open the door wide, step inside, and slam it shut, locking it. Father Martin, a noose tightened around his neck, his right arm pulling it taut, spins around, his mouth in an 'o' of shock. He puts his dick away and drops the rope. Tries to stand.

“Ah-ah! Don't fucking move,” I tell him. My hand shakes a little as I point the extended blade at him. I don't actually have the courage to slit his throat, but he doesn't need to know that. I look crazy enough right now to seem capable of anything.

“The many-voiced-” Father Martin starts.

“Melanie,” I spit at him. I've had enough nicknames to last me a lifetime.

“Very well,” Father Martin croaks. He wheezes, his hands gripping the chair rests. The noose is still pulled tight around his neck. “What do you want, Melanie?”

“My journal. Give it to me.”

“You mean Lane's journal?” he corrects, reaching into his robes. He pulls out the composition book.

Fuming, I step toward him, my blade aimed at his throat. “Hand it over.”

He eyes the boxcutter like I'm holding a poisonous snake. Reluctantly, he extends his hand, and I snatch the journal out of his disgusting fingers.

“Stealing is a sin, asshole,” I remind him. “So's jerking it. But I guess it's better than you molesting dead bodies.”

He glowers at me, scheming.

I hastily open the journal to the first page. The date is the same day I was admitted to the asylum. I hadn't blacked out that day, so Lane must have started it when I went to sleep.

_April 1 st, 2013_

_I guess it's only fitting that I wake up in an asylum on April Fool's Day. Ha, ha. I'm currently stuck in a room, with only the moonlight to write by. I know what the date is because the orderly in charge of my hall, Trevor, told me so. He said I owed him one for that favor, that he'd stop by to see me later. He thinks he can intimidate me, as he has the other women, but I know how to deal with useful idiots like him. I even managed to swipe this journal from one of the doctor's offices. This place is gonna be easy to crack, once I work out the kinks._

_It's the Others, the ones inside of me, that I don't understand._

_One of them cut her wrists. I don't know her name, nor any of the Others. The wounds are real, though. I certainly didn't fucking do this! I had so much going for me, and it all slipped through my fingers. The art gallery in San Fran. The interactive show at the industrial warehouse in Manhattan. I teamed up with some urban explorers on that one. Real strange cats, but fun to talk to. They taught me just about everything I know about mapping underground, abandoned places. They're almost as crazy as those doomsday survivalists I rolled with a few months back._

_Yeah, I was just starting to build a name for myself as a true artist. I even had some indie game devs and movie studios contacting me for reference work. Then it all got flushed away by someone whose name I don't even know. Fuck._

_Melanie, what would you think about all this? I miss you. Every time I look down, see the gashes on my wrists, I think of you, how you took the easy way out in high school. I never pictured you, hanging from a closet door, with a belt around your neck. Weird thing is, I broke into the evidence room and looked for your file, but all it contained were some records from Stonewall Asylum. A few misdemeanors. The police chased me out when I mentioned you, said that there hadn't been any suicides at our school. I suspect there's a cover-up going on, maybe the district's got funding on the line._

_Mount Massive seems like it has funding out the ass, from some mega-corporation, Murkoff. They're footing the bill for this treatment program of theirs. Reeks to high hell of conspiracy to me. I need to get scarce before they pull a Nurse Ratched on me._

_And then there's Stonewall Asylum. Mel used to tell me stories about the stint she did there, as a kid. Never did tell me why she was admitted. Told me once that she met a girl named Grace, while locked in solitary confinement. It should be fucking illegal to torture people like that, especially kids. She used to talk to Grace through the walls of their adjoined rooms. Grace was the only person that kept her sane while she sat, all alone, in the dark, in that small, dreary room. I promised her I would write a story about their adventures, some day._

_Who's gonna talk to me through these walls? All I can hear are the crazies: screaming, shouting, crying. I don't speak their language. I gotta get out of this place as fast as I can. Murkoff's got armed guards and security out the ass; there's no way I'm walking through the front doors. But old buildings like this, they have secrets, and I know how to coax them to talk._

_Just have to pray the Others don't fuck this up for me. It's like they exist solely to ruin my life._

_-Lane_

Shutting the diary is one of the most painful things I've ever had to do. But there's no time. I have to get away from Father Martin, find a safe place to read the rest of it.

“You look confused. Why don't you sit down?” Father Martin offers, not bothering to hide his false politeness. “If you're going to read all that.”

“I have no intention of staying,” I say, tucking the journal under my arm. I back up towards the door.

Father Martin shows no emotion. He gets up from his chair.

“Keep back!” I warn, slashing the blade through the air. “I'll cut you open, I swear to God! I've had enough of you and this place!”

My words aren't convincing enough. I was able to hurt Trager, after what he did to me, but I'd have to slit Martin's throat to kill him. I've never killed anyone in my entire life. I don't have the nerve. And he knows it.

“I heard that heretic doctor captured you,” Father Martin says smoothly, as if reading my mind. “You must be tired, Mel. Your leg looks painful. It hurts me, to see a child of God suffer so.”

“S-shut up.”I edge toward the door, clutching the journal to my chest like a shield. Martin's coming closer, moving slow, deliberate.

“Did he...violate you?” Father Martin whispers, eyes roving over my nurse uniform, seeing what I cannot say aloud. “Did he mutter sordid promises to you, as he filled you with his demon seed?”

“SHUT UP!” I scream, sick to my stomach, remembering everything. I bump into the door and fumble for the handle.

“You have been corrupted,” Martin concludes. He stays just out of arm's reach, his hands held in front of him.

From the other side, someone yanks the door open. One of the twins hits me across the head with the butt of his knife.

“Ahhh,” I moan, seeing stars. Hearing...

((( _Little child, lost so deep in my woods, why do you run from me?_ )))

The twins grab me. I fight them, slashing mindlessly with the boxcutter. Cut one on the forearm. He gets ahold of my wrist and wrenches the box cutter from my grip. No use, they're way too strong.

Father Martin is saying something, but I can't hear him over the cackling in my brain.

((( _Come to my abandoned shack, and I will give you succulence. Treats and tricks, in the basement we go. See the hand prints on the wall. So many have been here before, none of them wanting to leave. Would you like that, my pretty?_ )))

When I come to again, the twins have me by the arms, in the hallway. I thrash like a half-dead fish, but it's no use.

“You've been corrupted by the heretic's poisoned touch,” Father Martin says. He rips the journal out of my limp hand. “And you must be cleansed.”

He falls to his knees.

“Let me go!” I fight the twins, but they force me into submission. The stench coming off them is powerful enough to paralyze me.

“GOD!” Martin beseeches, holding Lane's diary in the air, spittle flying from his mouth. “I asked you to find the many-voiced prophet, and you have sent her RIGHT to me! I never doubted you!”

He looks wildly at the twins for agreement. They nod their understanding. I watch them all through a daze, head pounding. Father Martin clasps his hands and mutters prayers under his breath.

“Where do you want her, Father?” one brother asks.

“To the female ward!” Father Martin cries, jubilant. “We will summon the Walrider tonight!”

“That would be most satisfying to us,” the other twin remarks, licking his lips.

“Most satisfying, indeed.”

 

They drag me across the asylum, into the courtyard. As we approach the female ward, the rain pours down in sheets. It's flooded the fountain, which has turned a murky color, but it's too dark for me to see more. I think there are objects floating in it, but before I can make them out, they carry me straight past it and into the day room.

A few remaining Apostles run up to Father Martin. Their faces are covered by their hoods.

“Madge's time is near!” one informs him. “Her womb festers. She cries out your name.”

Father Martin strokes the woman's cheek with his left hand, and I gag a little.

“She will want to see the sacrifice. Move her, if you can.”

“She is too heavy now to move, Father. She will not be with us much longer.”

Father Martin dismisses them, saying, “Summon the others, quickly, and leave one attendant to her. I will guide Madge into the afterlife. But first, we must make the final offering!”

They mean to burn me alive, like Lucy. She was one of them, and they humiliated and destroyed her. Madge and the others looked to Martin for salvation, for some explanation for Murkoff's torture, and it's killing them. That is what this place, what Murkoff does to people: makes them turn on one another, like mindless savages.

“This place was never meant to heal anybody!” I cry after the Apostles as they leave. “You're all damned! You hear me?!”

The Apostles stop, turn around upon hearing my words. One of the twins thumps me between the shoulders, and I shut my mouth. We take the stairs to the second floor. The building stinks of smoke and cinder, the walls stained by smoke, ash. They take me to the room directly below the ruins of the third floor, where the ceiling has collapsed.

A new pyre has been built here, on top of the rubble. The twins strap me down with ropes, tying me to a crate. As Father Martin waits for the Apostles to gather, he stands over me.

“Do you wish to confess your sins, my child?” he asks, as pious as can be.

“Yes,” I whimper. “Please, hear me, Father.”

This takes him by surprise, but he doesn't drop his holy act. The twins and his gathering faithful are listening, after all. At least twenty of them are in the room now.

“Go on, then.”

“I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to free the Walrider,” I tell him, offering up my only bargaining chip.

“You will free him shortly!” Father Martin corrects me. “When you burn and draw him out.”

“Jessie wrote a program, to shut down Murkoff,” I say loudly. “I'm sorry I couldn't make it to Sublevel 666 and-”

Father Martin slaps me across the face. The twins are looking at one another again, and I think I catch a faint glimmer of doubt. Martin sees this and clamps his hand over my mouth.

“That's enough lies from you!” He snaps his fingers, and an Apostle brings a gag. He ties it around my mouth.

“Ignore the witch!” he commands, facing the crowd.

Witch. The nicknames just keep on coming.

“She speaks lies! There is no program, no worldly way to free the Walrider!” he bellows. “She must burn! That is the only way!”

The rest of his flock, those that haven't succumbed to the fake pregnancies, gather round. Only twenty or so remain. Some Variants have also heard the call.

Bound and gagged, I watch as they load more kindling all around me, and douse it with fuel. The strong odor of gasoline burns my nose, makes my stomach heave. One of the Apostles brings a lit candle to Father Martin. The crowd is growing anxious, animated. They wait with baited breath, some of them on their knees, praying, genuflecting.

I stare only at the two brothers, my eyebrows raised. Come on. You know he's full of shit. You know it. Or do they really, truly believe this madness?

“My children!” Father Martin cries. Raises the candle. “Witness! Tonight, we shall burn this witch, this WHORE, who has let herself be tainted by the foul touch of a nonbeliever!”

“WHORE!” the Apostles and Variants screech.

“Witch!'

“Burn her!”

“Burn the witch!”

Father Martin hollers over them, “The Walrider comes! He will finally wreak havoc on our tormentors!”

The crowd of freaks cheers. I watch as he lowers the candle to the pyre, giving me one last, triumphant look.

The flames shoot across the wood, crackling. They bathe me in heat, light. Flashes.

((( _Here I come; you better run._ )))

It's getting hot. VERY hot. I inhale smoke, choking. A strange, meditative calm has come over me. Despite the heat, despite the flames now eating away at the wood in front of me, I do not struggle.

((( _One, two, three, four, how many of God's children are at my door?_ )))

Ashes float into the air. From the depths of the inferno, gray moths crawl and fly out, first only a few, then swelling, into a swarm. I cough on the smoke, blacking out for a second.

((( _I'll get you, my pretties!_ )))

The congregates swat angrily at the moths. The insects slam into them, lighting their clothes and skin on fire. Shouts of fear and dismay erupt. Father Martin, peering into the flames, sees something. He backs toward the exit.

The pyre goes up with a whoosh. A wall of hellfire rises before of me. An arm and a hand reach out from the burning depths. The fingers are stained black, sharpened at the ends into claws. It pulls off my gag. Whoever, whatever it is, it's helping me, for now.

“He's full of shit!” I scream, using the last of the air in my lungs. “I have the program! I can destroy Murkoff!”

The arm grows into a shoulder, the shoulder growing a female torso. A white medical gown billows around a charred, skeletal frame. The witch from my nightmares pulls herself out of the fire, feeding on the flames, the ash. Her lipless mouth is drawn open, half of her face concealed by the grinning bone mask. She sucks the fire down her throat, her wispy hair flowing, as if in water. Thousands of moths peel away from her, aiming for the congregation.

“Run!” someone screams.

“It's not the Walrider!”

“It's something else!”

Father Martin's flock stampedes out of the room. Some fall prey to the moths, dying in wriggling masses of fire and embers, the insects crawling all over their bodies.

The pyre blazes, but a ring of ash protects me from the worst of it. My hair and dress are singed, pieces of them smoking. I can barely see a few feet in front of me. My eyes feel like they're boiling in my skull. Every so often, the flaming body of a moth streaks through the air, like a meteor.

The witch floats above the chaos, her feet never touching the ground. I can see the nodes of her spine, the deathly symmetry of her rib cage and bones.

She turns around, cackling. It's the face I've seen in my nightmares. My lungs suddenly work again.

I scream.


	16. The Diary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events with the Apostles come to a fiery, gross conclusion. Mel finally sits down to read Lane's diary.

As if suspended on marionette strings, the witch floats across the floor, coming closer. The hollows of her eyes are like two infrared points, filled with sorrow. Wrath.

“Mother,” a young woman's voice croons, not all that different from mine. It's distorted, almost electric. “What kind of world have you brought me into?”

She calls me Mother. Her body wavers and shifts, as if it's not whole, but made up of a swarm of...something. Where did she come from? The fire, or from me?

I fumble at the ropes, but it's no use. She's almost on top of me now.

“MOTHER!” she wails, extending her blackened fingers. They branch out and harden into spear points, aimed straight at my chest, my throat. Before her claws can find their mark, someone grabs me by the armpits and yanks me out of there.

One of the twins hurls a bucket of water at the witch. Some of it splashes her, and she draws back, howling like a banshee, arms shielding her head. For a split second, her body separates, the way a thick mosquito cloud morphs when swatted at. Beneath her floating, incorporeal form, the second floor begins to buckle. A tremendous groan reverberates throughout the ward.

“Run!” one brother shouts. The one holding me carries me into the hallway. They race down the stairs, to the foyer with the elevator shaft. Father Martin is nowhere to be seen. The surviving congregates have fled from the building.

From our right, there's a loud crack, a series of thuds as the second floor room collapses. The hallway is filled with smoke, but the air is breathable down here, for the moment. I suck in a few breaths, my head spinning.

“Set her down,” one twin tells the other. His brother puts me on the ground. I can barely stand, my left leg may as well be made of stone. I'm staring at them, cowed by shock. They're still clutching their knives. Their naked bodies have been burned in places, but they still seem strong enough to cut me to pieces.

“Tell us about the program,” the one in front of me orders. His brother stands close behind, ready to attack if I try to flee.

I struggle to speak. My words come out in rapid gasps. “Jessie wrote instructions for me. I have to go to Sublevel 666 and find a computer and-”

Before I can finish, the witch's cackling laughter descends from the stairwell. Moths float down like heavy snow, flying past us. I duck to avoid one colliding with my face.

“She comes,” the twin behind me says, apprehensive.

I wince, the witch's laughter echoing like dirge bells in my brain. “Well don't just stand there! Let's go! Run!”

“Wait,” the twin in front of me says, raising a finger to his misshapen ear. “Listen.”

Thuds, coming from the floor above us. Someone or something heavy, dragging itself down the hallway? But the witch doesn't walk.

She's definitely there: the moth swarm begins to spiral down the shaft, burning holes in the stairs, the walls. One of the twins cuts the moths with his knife, severing their bodies in half. As I try and piece together what's happening, from above, a new voice bellows:

“NO!”

It's Madge.

We can't see her, but we can hear her: a few more fast-paced thuds, and she screams, “I was supposed to be the one! ME! I was his chosen! I WON'T LET YOU HAVE HIM!”

A pause.

Then, a gigantic fireball drops down the stairwell, smashing a huge chunk of it to rubble. Madge's enormous, flaming, swollen body plummets like a boulder, her arms wrapped around the witch. In their wake, a wave of the deadly moths crashes, headed straight for us. Madge and the witch bounce off the stairs, shaking the building, tearing more pieces away. With a final crash, a sickening splatter, they land somewhere below, in the basement.

I can't breathe again, frozen by what I've just witnessed. The glow from the fireball goes out. The moth cloud dissipates. The insects blacken, turn into ash, and crumble away in the air.

Slowly, the twins edge toward the stairwell. One of them drags me along, tugging on my ropes. We peer over the edge.

Madge's body has...popped. There is no other word for it. From the smoldering puddle of intestines and gore, streams of particles drift into the air. The odd smoke is all that remains of the witch.

“Is she dead?” I ask. My voice is small, meek, like a child's. “Is the witch gone?”

One of the twins spits down the stairwell. His saliva lands on the pile of rubble and death, sizzling.

“Maybe. Perhaps she will return, one day.”

“But she is dead for now,” the other remarks. “The fat one saw to that.”

“We never liked her, anyway.”

They carry me out into fresh air of the courtyard. Still no sign of Father Martin or his flock.

One brother turns to me, brandishing his knife. “Start over. Tell us more about this program.”

It takes me a second to remember what he's talking about. I can't get the witch's glowing eyes out of my head. Where did she come from? And why? But, the more I breathe the clean mountain air, and as each second passes, it gets a little easier to think. I feel...lighter, somehow.

“Jessie Holmes wrote a program and told me how to use it. It'll hurt Murkoff, maybe even destroy them,” I explain. “But I have to get to Sublevel 666. To the computers down there.”

“The underground lab,” one twin recalls faintly.

“You know how to get there?” I ask, hopeful.

“We have no memory, only a feeling. A dream. But Father Martin says it exists.”

I sigh in frustration. It would make me feel A LOT better if they would cut my binds already. Their knives are a bit too close for comfort, and that's not some sort of phallic joke.

“Please. I NEED my journal,” I beg them. I can't tell from their warped faces if they know what I'm saying. “The journal will tell me how to get there. Understand?”

One turns to his brother, muttering, “Father Martin's plan failed. The Walrider sleeps.”

“Do we betray him, for this girl?”

“It isn't betrayal if it helps his plan.”

“True. He's a bit of an asshole.”

“I say we help her.”

“I concur.”

They turn to me. One takes his knife, starts sawing at the ropes. I still can't put any weight on my leg. I grit my teeth at his rough movements.

“You are falling apart,” he remarks, pulling away the last of the restraints. “So we will be fast.”

“We will get you the diary. In return, you can't come back here.”

One twin sticks out his thick tongue, licks all the way down his knife. “If you return, try to get to the priest, we cannot guarantee your safety.”

“Deal?”

“Deal,” I tell them. I have no reason to ever want to see Father Martin again, unless I can borrow Trager's shears and cut his balls off.

“Wait for us over there.” One points to the fountain.

“Okay. Don't be long,” I say. I'm not sure how much longer I can stay on my feet.

The twins cross the courtyard, entering the asylum through a broken window.

Huffing, wheezing, I walk toward the fountain. I feel like I'm going to pass out from blood loss. I need a transfusion, but it'll have to wait. Who am I kidding? I probably won't get out of this alive. But not before I shove my foot up Murkoff's ass.

Something catches my eye, up ahead. As I reach the fountain, I cry out in disgust and horror.

The water trickles, red with blood. There are tiny, flesh-colored things in the water. I think they're pieces of dolls, at first. Then I get to the edge, and realize I'm looking at something real. Tiny hands and feet, floating on the surface. A few arms and legs. No heads or torsos, though. But there are pieces of birds, too—crows and blackbirds and ravens. Heads and beaks, talons. Wings. Black, shiny feathers.

“What the FUCK?” I moan. “Oh God.”

What was it one of the women had said in therapy, way, way back when I first came here? One of them had a crippling fear of birds, especially crows. If one flew anywhere near her, she would fall to the floor, crying, begging for it to go away.

The worst part is, I can't even remember her name. She's probably dead now. Who will remember me, when I am gone?

I back away from the fountain, collapsing into some weeds. I lay there amongst the plants, drifting in and out of a daze that isn't quite sleep.

Not human. Whatever was inside these women, it wasn't human. And it killed them. Nightmares manifested here, in real life. Our worst fears were used to torture us. Jessie, forced to abort her 'baby'. The women, forced to birth these creatures. Hilda Herzog and her little, chewing demons. Me, and my other halves trying to destroy me, kill others. Murkoff listened to our sessions, recorded what we were afraid of most, our traumas, and somehow they brought them out of fantasy, into this reality.

Dawn is breaking, orange light glowing on the horizon. The twins have returned. One of them licks raw flesh off his knife like it's a popsicle. The other hands me the diary. His chest and hips are splattered with blood, and something that looks and smells like vomit.

“You killed him? You killed Martin?” I ask hopefully.

The twin lowers his knife, licking his chops. “No. Had a snack.”

“Ran into some sentinels. We got hungry.”

“You must leave now. Lots of guards, at the admin block.”

“We suggest you try the drying ground.”

“But Eddie's back that way!” I protest.

The twins shrug. One of them points his knife at me, and I get the message: I am no longer welcome here.

I limp away from them, and climb through a window connecting admin to vocational. I'm in the corridor where I overheard the soldiers talking about someone letting the Variants loose. Now I know who it was. I enter a bathroom, check to make sure it's empty, and lock the door. I sit down in one of the empty stalls, its door torn off the hinges. Cracking the diary, I pick up where I've left off, skimming over the entries:

_April 10 th, 2013_

_Got the card key from Trevor today. It look me a while to seduce him, but you'd be amazed what a blowjob will get you. Some girls might turn their nose up at my methods, but I'm a survivor, and if one stupid bj stands between me and freedom, fuck it, I'll take one for the team._

  _His security clearance is minimal, but I can go through most doors now. I have already mapped some of the key passages in the back of this diary._

Pausing, I flip to the end. The entire asylum's been mapped in intricate detail. Many rooms are labeled, including the bathroom I'm in now. Passages are marked with blue lines and arrows. Big red x's and comments like 'dead end', 'Walker territory' and 'death trap', sending chills down my spine.

And, located near the chapel elevator: 'Lab Entrance #1'.

“God damn it, Lane,” I murmur, holding back tears. “You did it. You found a way.”

I go back to reading:

_It's slow going, mapping this place. I have to sneak my writing in when I wake up at night. I've never been a daytime person. Bad for my artwork. On top of that, I've seeing this shrink during special nightly sessions, Dr. Hannigan. He seems like I can trust him. He's nice enough to stay up late and talk to me, anyway._

_He has his concerns about Mount Massive, too. But he wants to work with me, so I shared some bullshit stories with him. Told him about the Others. He asked to see my diary, but I found a nice hiding spot for it, and nobody's gonna get their hands on it, unless I want 'em to._

_-Lane_

_April 20 th, 2013_

_This place is fucked up. I'm scared for my life._

_I managed to sneak past the female ward. Plenty of Murkoff staff in the lobby and male ward, took me a few nights to get by them. Doesn't help that I've been blacking out more. One night, I got down to the lower levels, and my god, they're running this place like a prison. There's actually a fucking prison where they're keeping people locked up, denying them food, water, medicine._

_I saw things out of a human rights nightmare. Patients being abused, flesh-eating bacteria infections rampant, people tied to wheelchairs, left to rot. It breaks my spirit. The Murkoff guys just laugh it off, or brain them with their clubs until they can't move._

_Some of the male patients look like zombies. Barely human. I don't know what they're doing to them. I need to find out, before they start doing the same to the women._

_May 1st, 2013_

_One of the Others got me into trouble. I woke up strapped to a gurney with an injection mark in my neck. A nurse told me that I tried to make a run for it at the admin block. It took me a second to realize they meant one of the Others. Whoever this Other is, she's dumb as hell if she thinks she can just man-handle her way out of here._

_I plan on asking Dr. Hannigan if any of THEM have talked to him. Maybe I can finally learn their names, at least. I'm also gonna tell him what I saw in the male ward. I hope he doesn't snitch on me. I think he has a good heart. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and he has kind eyes. I'm thinking about swiping that cool Egyptian cat statue of his for myself._

_May 11 th, 2013_

_Got caught sneaking to the kitchens. They don't feed us on a regular schedule, and the food's awful, think oatmeal mixed with sour milk. Guy that caught me was an orderly, by the name of David Annapurna. Instead of smacking me over the head and dragging me back to my room, he spoke with me in secret. Said he plans on going to the press and reporting the situation. Hopefully he can help these people. I'm not holding my breath._

_David told me to watch out, that the female experiments were starting. That makes sense, because some of the women are acting strange, talking about visions, hearing voices from God. I asked him where they were taking them for these treatments. He told me he heard about a secret lab, but he doesn't know where the entrance is._

_I don't know why, but I have to find it. Maybe there's a way out through there._

_Maybe I'm just crazy._

_May 25 th, 2013_

_Got most of the upper and lower levels mapped. Never crawled through so many vents, had so many spiders in my hair. I'm going to get some kind of lung-rot from all the dust I've inhaled._

_Things are getting worse here. I'm stuck in place. Not sleeping well. Dr. Hannigan is concerned. I told him about the conditions at the male ward. Maybe he thinks I'm lying, but he didn't really react. Just writes his notes and says nothing. And he won't tell me if he's been talking to the Others. He said that revealing information about them could cause some kind of episode in me, might even make me go insane. I asked him to explain. He said something about how the main persona can handle information, the way a tree trunk can handle damage. But if you do the same to a branch, it's gonna snap off._

_Trees are tapping against my window, like witch's fingers clawing at my door. I gotta get out of here before they can get me._

_June 3 rd, 2013_

_I found it. I found the secret entrance. It was stupid easy, can't believe I missed it. It's the elevator in the main lobby. It's rigged to go down to the sublevel, if you have the right key. Strange air blowing up from below. Smells like snow and ice._

_Stealing one of those keys wasn't easy, but thanks to my map, I'm like a phantom in this place. The problem is, the elevator entrance is too risky. There's nowhere to hide once you get in. Gonna have to find another way._

_Met a kindred spirit in group therapy, by the name of Jessie Holmes. Jesus-freak, sure, but she has a certain vindictive, bitchy quality to her that I like. When we first started talking, she thought I was somebody else. It's happened to me before. I explained my blackouts to her, and she suggested it was demons, attacking my spirit. I suggested she try Google sometime._

_June 18 th, 2013_

_There is another entrance, through the hospital ward! It's a tough nut to crack, and I haven't been able to go down it yet. Hosital ward has plenty of vents and passages to crawl around in. I found the rooms where they're doing some of the experiments. I read through some of their documents, too. They call it Morphogenic Programming. It looks like MK Ultra shit to me. I don't fancy getting caught by the doctors and strapped in front of those screens._

_If you follow your nose, you can smell where the foulness is coming from. They bring the patients up, fresh from the underground, from another elevator in the hospital ward. It's under heavy security. There's a ventilation system that also leads down there, some chemical piping._

_I can't get the faces of the patients out of my head. They were broken men when they came to the asylum, but once the scientists are through with them, they're not even men anymore._

_I told Jessie about the things I've seen. She berated me for sneaking around, breaking the rules. Then she told me some VERY interesting things, and asked if I would like to help her. So I will. I'm a good friend like that._

_Plus, I'm going stir crazy. I thought I heard Jessie refer to me as 'Mel' once, but that's impossible, no way she would know about Melanie._

_Anyway, it's nice to have someone to talk to._

_July 14 th, 2013_

_Been busy, writing down a lot of shit for Jessie to have a look at. Computer geek stuff that I can't understand. She's writing some kind of code, based on what I can get her. Dr. Hannigan is letting her use that fancy laptop of his. She keeps her notes and research all in her big ,leather Bible. Dunno how that brain of hers works, but she can quote just about any passage from it, and use the numbers as a reference key. I've seen her destroying some notes, flushing them down the toilet or burning them, so she must be using the Bible as a backup reference manual or something._

_She agrees that I have to get to the underground lab, the meat of this operation, if we're going to poison the whole thing. She wants me to write down everything I can find about the computer systems down there. I managed to steal a camera, and I'm going to get her some photos, too._

_That's right. I'm wrapped up in a conspiracy to destroy Murkoff now. If I make it out of here, I'm pitching a script to all the major movie studios. Actually, fuck that. I'm done with corporations. I'll go the independent route._

_Jessie definitely called me 'Mel' again. How would she know about my dead friend? I think her and Dr. Hannigan are working together. He has my file, he might have read something about Melanie in there and told her. Whatever they know, they're keeping it from me. It's not doing my mental health any wonders._

_July 31 st, 2013_

_My hand shakes as I write this. David, the guy who helped me, disappeared. I thought he was reassigned, that he was in the process of blowing this entire thing up in the press._

_I was wrong._

_I found him in the hospital ward, during one of my research nights. He was strapped down to a chair. They'd forced him to undergo treatment. He was babbling something about Variants. I think that's what they're calling the patients who have mutated. I had to leave him, but he didnt even realize I was there. His mind has been lost, forever. All because he dared to try and help us._

_Poor David. I told Jessie about him, and she said that she would immortalize his name. I don't know what she meant by it, but maybe it's something to do with the code._

_August 8 th, 2013_

_Had a rough blackout. Woke up with stitches on my forehead. Need to hurry up and get out of here before one of the Others kills me. Went to see Dr. Hannigan, who told me that he was going to report Murkoff to the authorities. I don't want him to end up like David, so I told him what happened, and about Jessie's code. He called her into his office, and the three of us hashed things out. He was careful to avoid making eye contact with me._

_I begged him to tell me about the Others. I know he's been talking to them, I can see it in his face. He told me he can't, because it could kill me. I could go into a psychotic state and never return. The best way to treat my disease, he said, was through some kind of meditation guided, self-evaluation, followed by deep trance therapy. Or a traumatic event that would force me to deal with the Others in a way that makes sense, such as a survival scenario (insert ironic joke here)._

_Dr. Hannigan said he would cause a distraction and let me get into the underground lab. He's kind of a badass._

_We strike tomorrow night._

_August 15 th, 2013_

_Have to give Dr. Hannigan credit. The crazy bastard told some orderlies he saw a patient escape and run for the hospital ward with a bomb. Said he could convince the patient not to set it off, if they let him go with them to act as a negotiator. The entire hospital ward shut down while they looked for Dr. Hannigan's ghost. I snuck in, took the vents down, and emerged somewhere near the elevator._

_The underground lab is a series of icy hallways under the mountain. There's a ritual symbol on the floor of the lobby, some kind of illuminati shit. I think I've seen it before, while exploring the under-city with some guys in Philadelphia. The employees down in the lab all wear hazmat suits, pressurized masks. I don't want to think about what I was breathing in. With all the sanitation protocols, there's no shortage of vents._

_I took pictures of the computers for Jessie. Wrote down what she wanted. The key was in room 666—that's where they kept the formula._

_I crawled my way to the main engine room. What I saw there...Jesus Christ._

_People in tanks. People with tubes going in and out of their mouth, their eyes, everything. Like human fetuses. This is how they're hurting people, under the guise of science. Or maybe they don't see it as science. Maybe this is someone's sick idea of fun, like a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass._

_I got the fuck out of there, fast. Was too scared to take pictures. Some of them looked like monsters. I scraped and crawled back to my room. Gonna give Jessie her stuff tomorrow, during bible study._

_August ???_

_Something really bad happened to one of the Others. Woke up strapped to a chair, in the hospital ward. Big fucking screen, images flashing. My eyes were already open, eyelids pinned in place by metal clips. Horrifying pictures in my head. Nightmares, things I've heard before, in therapy, and things I can't name._

_Someone's laughter, coming from my head. Must have woken me up out of the trance. I was stuck in the restraints. I would have gone back under, probably never returned, were it not for David. Somehow he grew back some of his mind, and escaped. He freed me from my bonds and together we took to the vents, the walls, just like rats._

_And just like rats, we cut through wires. Chewed and sawed and unplugged, in our kingdom behind the walls. David calls me the rat queen. I will set my people free on these miserable humans! Starting with the man in the tank, the buff, handsome one with short black hair._

_I will be back for the rest. For now, I have to get back to the upper levels, see a doctor about something, I forget what it was._

_August ???_

_Dreaming more and more, about a girl who looks like me. She seems lost, sad. I feel like I know her. No time to think too hard. I woke up strapped to a bed again, in some sort of recovery room. Flashing, behind my eyelids. No David to help me, but I wiggled my way loose._

_Back down, down, down into the underground. David met me there. We snipped more wires, laughed as the men in white coats and blue suits ran around, panicked. We snuck into the room with the big, sparkling brain and freed another Variant: this one is BIG. Like a gorilla. He didn't recognize us as his kin. He was pissed._

_The white coats shot David. I tried to help him back to our hole, but the big man grabbed him before I could get him all the way inside. He ripped his head off. I couldn't watch._

_Too afraid to look for Jessie and the doctor. To make matters worse, someone stole my diary! I tracked it back to the evidence room. Found it in a locker. I will keep it here for now. No one comes here anymore._

_That weird priest is walking down the hall, singing his church songs. I have to run now. If the girl I'm dreaming about finds this, maybe it will help her._

_I am starting to think she is real. If she finds this and needs help, she should pray to Bast for answers. Some cats befriend rats...until they get hungry. She better not try to crawl underground without praying, first._

_-Lane_


	17. The Axe Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the way out at her fingertips, Mel faces off against her final 'half'.

I shut the diary. Wipe tears from my eyes, hanging my head. Lane was slowly losing her mind in this place, as I am now. It makes perfect sense. We're the same person, after all. I am the tree with broad roots, a strong trunk, and she was merely a branch, an offshoot of the real thing. As were my other halves. Lane simply called them 'Others'. They were lost to whatever effect the morphogenic engine had on my brain, like a fungus consuming a plant.

The byproduct of that 'fungus' must have been the witch, the Variant version of me. And she took care of my halves, one by one, picking them off, destroying them. I don't know where she came from, but she's gone now. I suppose I'll never know.

Ripping the pages with the map from the diary, I take the rest and throw it in the sink, run water over it. I soak the pages until the ink runs and the paper congeals into a pulpy mess.

 _She better not try to crawl underground without praying, first_ , Lane wrote. There must be something hidden in that cat statue, or written on the bottom, something I missed.

I check the map for the easiest route to Dr. Hannigan's office. There are some vents leading there, but I'll have to run through a few hallways, too, including a section with a big, fat red 'X' labeled 'Walker territory'. Not to mention I'll be going back into the female ward, where the twins warned me never to return. I fold the pages and tuck them into the small chest pocket of the nurse dress. Then, taking a deep breath, I peek around the door and check the hall.

All clear.

Limping toward admin block, I scoot around a corner and look up. Wide mouth of a vent with loose screws above me. I stand on an overturned barrel and remove the cover, crawling inside. Once there, I seem to know just where I'm going. I've done this before, after all.

Twisting and turning, the vent leads me to a dead end, with a hole that drops me off somewhere in administration. It looks like an office, near the place where the patients chased me. I slide down and land on my good leg. Stumble over to the office door. There are two sets of doors in this room.

As I peek out of the one, checking the hall, the other door slams shut.

I spin around, and the motion hits me with a fresh wave of vertigo. Through double vision I see two images of a woman in an orange jumpsuit, both walking towards me. The images converge into one, and I can't believe what I'm seeing.

“Ellen? You're alive?”

Her shark's eyes glimmer, bottomless tar pits. She smiles, most of her face stained black where the moths have burned her skin. Her blonde hair is streaked with ash.

“Sister,” she greets, sounding anything but friendly.

“I thought the moths, the witch,” I stammer. Something isn't right. Ellen's stalking closer like a predatory cat. There's something small and sharp clutched in her right hand—a jagged piece of broken glass.

“Grace took the worst of it. She's gone,” Ellen says, emotionless. “Thanks for takin' care of the Variant. She was useful to me for a while, killing Natalie and all them Jesus freaks. But now there's one final thing I gotta take care of.”

“Stay back,” I say, wrenching open the door. My guts drop into my feet. Out in the hallway, Walker's broad, monstrous back is turned to me. I shut the door as quietly as I can.

“You brought him right to us,” I hiss, glaring at Ellen. She stops, folding her arms. The glass shard dances across her knuckles.

“Didn't do any such thing. You read the map,” she sneers. “This is HIS territory. So what's it gonna be? Do what I say, or I'll cut your tendons and let the beast have you.”

This cannot be happening. Not when I'm this close.

I spit at her, “Fuck you. You don't command me. I am in control here. ME!”

Thump, thump, rattle. Walker's heavy footfalls, just outside the door. Ellen glances at the door, then back at me, and shrugs.

“What do you want from me?” I ask her.

“Forget the statue,” Ellen says, slashing the air with the glass to get her point across. “Forget the program. We're gonna find a way outta here that doesn't involve takin' an express elevator to hell. Just you n' me, out in the world again. Whaddaya say?”

I shake my head, well aware by the loud thuds that Walker is almost to the door. “There  _is_ no other way out! People are dying, Ellen. Don't you care?”

Walker's voice, growling from the other side: “Little pig, I hear your squeals.”

“Don't give a rat's ass about 'em.” Ellen laughs, ignoring Walker. “I know another way, and we're damn close to it. Let's go. Get that meat vehicle moving.”

She points the glass shard at my throat.

I look down. My own hand is pressing a piece of glass against my jugular.

Look back up. Ellen is still there, pointing at me, smiling.

With my free hand, I rip the door open and scream, “HERE! IN HERE!”

Two things happen at once, so fast my brain can hardly process. Walker spins around in the hallway, hands outstretched, lunging for me. Ellen bounds across the room, and pushes me out of the way. I fall to the floor. Walker lowers his shoulder and drives it into Ellen, the two of them rocketing across the room, crashing into the opposite wall.

I scramble to my feet and run as fast as I can into the hallway, into the next room. There's a fireplace in here, a few couches and chairs.

And an open window.

Leaning my head out, I can see scaffolding that extends all the way to the ground. God damn her, she was right. My freedom basks before me, my light at the end of this dark, twisted tunnel. I climb out the window and crouch on the wooden planks, press myself close against the wall, as Chris Walker stomps into the room. His chains rattle as he moves, searching for me, overturning couches, throwing chairs.

“Tricky, to use two voices,” he mutters. “Two or one. I'll rip you, either way.”

No sign or sound of Ellen. I curl into a ball, waiting, listening. Walker stumps over to the window, and I hold my breath, pressing as hard as I can into the wall beneath it.

His shadow falls across me. Walker looks out, stares straight into the rising sun.

“The red,” he growls. “Hurts the eyes. Desert sun boiled their pupils. It burns.”

I wait for what feels like eternity, watching the sun rise with Walker, past the gate and over the tree line. It's been so long since I've seen pure daylight. The roses and golds are so beautiful, so heavenly, I can't help but cry. Not tears of joy, but tears of frustration. Of self-pity. Because I know what I have to do.

Walker turns around and leaves. I wait, until I can no longer hear his heavy breathing, the rattling chains. Seizing the edge of the window, I hoist myself back into the room, into the asylum.

Ellen is gone. I don't know if Walker killed her, or if I willed her away. There's a chance she could come back. I cross the admin block and find the next air vent, located in a room near a locked security station. This one takes me all the way over to the female ward, drops me down straight into a room adjacent to Dr. Hannigan's office.

I sneak down the hallway, open the door to his office. Flick the lights on. The statue is where I left it. I pick it up and turn it over, examining the base.

There's a circular indentation. I turn it with my fingernail. My leg is hurting badly, making it hard to think, to move. Lowering myself to the floor, I pull the false bottom of the statue out and reach inside. Pull out a card key.

“U-Lab Access Key” is printed on the side. Something else rattles around. I pull out a metal key, the kind I've seen Trevor use in the elevator.

There's just one problem, now. I can't seem to get off the floor. Fatigue, blood loss, mental torment have all chipped away at me, taking a piece at a time. Strike a tree enough, and it will come tumbling down. I want nothing more than to fall asleep here, and never ever wake up. I think I do nod off a little and sleep, because I dream...

 _Grace walks into the office, a black cat in her arms. It purrs as she strokes its fur. They are both singed, smoking, the cat missing tufts of fur, Grace's medical gown littered with tiny holes._  

  _“Get up, Melanie,” she calls to me. Trails of smoke coil from her lips. She drops the cat, and it runs over, dropping ash, meowing. “_ _Get up now before it's too late.”“_

_Ellen said you were dead,” I tell her, leaning against the wall. My tattered left leg sticks out in front of me. “Are you a ghost now?”_

_She doesn't answer, frowning at me. The cat jumps into my lap and starts kneading its claws into my thighs. I can barely feel them pricking at my skin._

_“I kept you company, back at Stonewall,” Grace says finally. “All those times we played and talked, while you were trapped in that room.”_

_“You weren't real. I made you up, because I was losing my mind,” I confess._

_Grace says softly, “Does it matter if I was never real, Mel?”_

_The cat pauses, looking up at me with bright, green eyes._

_I murmur,“Yes. It matters a great deal.”_

_“But I helped you.”_

_“You told me I had to find a way out. That I wasn't meant to stay in that room.”_

_“And you DID find a way out, thanks to me.”_

_“No. I invented you, as a way of dealing with my fear,” I sigh. The cat purrs, getting up. It runs after Grace, who starts walking for the door. “I invented all the others, too. Got so good at it, I lost myself in their lives. It was all a fantasy.”_

_For a long pause, neither of us says anything._

_“I don't mind not being real. But I don't want you to die,” Grace tells me. “Get up. Find your way out, one last time!”_

_“I can't. I'm too tired. My leg's broken.”_

_G_ _race sighs, stands in the doorway. “Pain is in the mind, that's what someone told me once, when I scraped my knee.”_

_“Where are you going?” I call after her. “Stay here, with me.”_

_She shakes her bald, burned head. “I can't. I have to go now, Mel. Goodbye.”_

_With that, she turns the corner, the cat following at her heels. It meows one last time..._

I awake, to the warmth of a real black cat, this one unscathed. It's laying across my lap, snoozing, purring. How it has managed to stay alive in this place, I cannot guess.

“Where did you come from?” I ask.

It wakes, uncurls its body, and jumps out of my lap. Tail streaking the air, it runs out of the room, startled by something.

Footsteps. I watch, dazed, as Ellen slips into the office. Her left arm hangs, severed at the wrist. Her jumpsuit is torn, tattered. Chunks of her hair and scalp, yanked out. Part of her skull's been crushed, her one eye swollen shut. She stumbles toward me, the glass shard in her remaining hand.

“I gave you a chance. You didn't take it,” she mutters. “Gonna take care of you myself. Put you outta your misery. Traitor. Bitch.”

I wait until she's close, until she raises the glass in the air. The tip is poised above my throat. Concentrating, I focus on the pain in my leg, throughout my body. Clamp down on it, channeling it, directing it at Ellen.

“What are you...aaaagh! STOP!” Ellen moans, doubling over, leaning on her right leg, as if her left's suddenly snapped in two.

“How does it feel?” I ask her, rising to my feet. I lean against my left shin, aggravating the torn muscles there. Fresh, hot bolts streak through my body, through Ellen's. Her face contorts with pain, grimacing.

“STOP!” she whimpers. The glass shard falls to the floor, falls from my own fingers.

The pain has me thinking clear, sharp. I shut my eyes, commanding, “Go away. Don't come back.”

A final guttural, choking sound from Ellen. I open my eyes.

Gone.

And so is the pain. I look down. My calf is still chewed up where the shears pierced me, but somehow the pain has vanished, with Ellen.

I take out Lane's map and check it again. If she thought the main elevator was too easy, then it's best I take the other one down. From this vent system in the female ward, I should be able to connect with the hospital ward.

Flipping Dr. Hannigan's desk over, I climb up into the vent, moving forward. Snake my way over to the first floor laundry room. There's a crack behind some lockers here, and I push inside, emerging into harsh white light.

I'm in a storage room, full of jars and medical equipment. Searching around, I find some first-aid tape, and wrap my calf up with it. I can put more weight on my leg now. I check the map again, listening. There could still be Murkoff staff and Variants in this wing of the asylum.

Lane wasn't kidding about becoming a phantom. Her route takes me out of harm's way, through hidden passages I never could have found on my own. While squeezing behind a wall, I hear voices. I stop and listen. Two staff members are talking to one another, and I hear the occasional computerized beep, and fingers typing hastily on a keyboard.

“Everything's still running at optimal levels downstairs,” one of them says. Their typing speeds up a tick. “They've fixed all the glitches. Wiring issue, probably rats.”

“Yeah, but we have to finish today's batch,” the other cautions them, “before the big security push. They're gonna sweep the entire asylum and shoot any Variants on sight. Waste of our work, if you ask me.”

“Nobody asked,” the other scoffs. “After all the murders, you give a fuck what happens to them?”

“I give a fuck about losing my job. The bonus this year is gonna bump me up a tax bracket. Wife's pretty excited.”

“Just focus on not losing your life. Keep plugging that data. Once we're done, we can head downstairs to containment.”

“Heard they got a new ping-pong table down there. Fancy a round?”

“Heh. You're on.”

It sickens me, how they can joke about this. It's almost surreal. In that moment, I loathe Murkoff and its employees, more than anything. It fills me with a boiling rage.

I come to the end of the wall passage, where there should be a hole leading into a kitchen area. Except someone's moved something big across it, and I can't get out. It's dark, and I can't read the map. I have to give up on that for now, until I can find some light, so I keep edging behind the walls, climbing over pipes, wires. It's noisy work.

“You hear that?” someone yells.

I freeze.

“Fucker's in the walls! Get the hammer!”

Panicking, I start to run, scraping my shoulders against drywall, brick. I cough on a cloud of dust.

WHAM! The head of a sledgehammer crashes through the wall in front of me. I pause, and duck under the hole, as the hammer comes down again, just behind me. Drywall and dust rain down.

“Someone's there! I can see them!” my attacker yells.

“I got it!” another cries.

An alarm starts to screech. I feel my way blindly through the suffocating dark. The hammer thuds above my head, missing me by inches. A hand snakes through the hole, grabs me by the hair.

“Got her!”

I claw at them until they let me go. The hammer slams against brick, cracking into my hip bone. I grit my teeth and keep going, arriving at a corner. I turn left, and the passage opens up. Running down it, I arrive at a grate. Kicking with all my strength, I pop it off.

Crawl out into a back room, inside a kitchen. I duck behind the sleek counters, listening. It's hard to hear anything over the sirens. I check the map. Damn close now. The elevator is just past the kitchens, near the upper-level labs. I run out of there, not bothering to check the hallway. Right, left, another left. Footsteps behind me now, boots pounding against linoleum. A LOT of fucking boots.

A bullet whizzes past my ear, thuds into the wall in front of me. I can see the electrical panel and metal doors of the elevator. Taking the card key, I swipe it against the panel, and it turns green. Doors slide open. I jump inside, punching the close button. Through the gap in the doors, as they slowly shut, I see the Murkoff tactical squad running toward me. They take aim, and I dive to the side as bullets thunk into the elevator, shooting off sparks.

The doors shut before they can reach me. I start my descent. The air in here smells of winter, of ice and dead plants.

Panting, I take out the map, tracing my finger over my path. Have to climb the stack of crates in the hallway, across the pipes, into the first vent. Those armed guys will be right behind me.

The doors ping, opening, revealing the underground lab. Nobody in the ice-covered hallway, but the alarm's going off down here, emergency lights strobing like it's a god-damned rave.

I run toward a stack of crates and climb onto the pipes running along the ceiling. My fingers quickly go numb from the cold metal. If I don't keep moving, my skin's gonna stick to the pipes. I crane my neck and look behind, to see the elevator taking off for the surface again. Shit.

 Sharp turn right, and there's the vent entrance. I wriggle inside and start crawling like a mad woman, as the boots of the tactical soldiers thud below me.

“She's in the vents!”

“Get her!”

Bullets rip into the space behind me, coming my way, fast. The noise drowns out the commands of the soldiers. A slug clips my hand, the space between my thumb and forefinger torn off in an instant.

 I turn right, and the onslaught stops. I know they're looking for me. Crawling, trailing blood, my breath fogging the metal walls, I push toward my destination.

Arriving at a t-intersection, I check the map again. Trace the path with a bloody finger. There's a lab numbered 666 to my left. I turn that way, listening for the soldiers. Pause before the shaft leading down into the lab.

Below me are three scientists in blue hazmat suits, working at a table full of chemistry equipment. One is editing something on a white board, scrawling in blue felt pen. Some kind of complex formula. That must be what Jessie needed.

One of the scientists shouts nervously over the alarm, “Shouldn't we get going? There's been another breach!”

“Security'll handle it,” another says, calm, apathetic. He pours smoking liquid from a vial into a beaker. “Keep working, or you'll be terminated.”

The third scientist sets his tray down on a counter. Hesitates. He's looking up at the ceiling.

“I heard something crawling above us,” he says. “Fuck this. I'm outta here.”

He dashes from the lab. The one in front of the white board follows, leaving just the one scientist in front of the glass equipment. He stops working, muttering to himself, and glances up at me.

Searches the vent opening. His eyes widen.

“What-” he starts, but I kick out the grate and tumble down, landing with a crash on the table, crushing his equipment. The glass bites into my skin, slicing my arms, my legs, my neck. The scientist takes one look at me and flees.

“She's in here!” I hear him yell. “Hurry, you bastards!”

I run to the door and shut it. Bleeding everywhere, I dash around the lab, looking for a computer, a laptop, something to enter the commands into. But there's nothing here.

“What the fuck,” I moan, pulling on my hair. “Shit! Where am I supposed to go?”

I think back to Lane's diary. She mentioned a 'sparkling brain', a room where they keep the tanks. That must be the morphogenic engine room. There's bound to be a computer or two there.

This isn't over. I hide in a locker, as the tactical squad smashes the door in. Their flashlights shine over me for a second, before roving over the rest of the lab like ghosts.

“She's still here. Her blood's everywhere,” one of them grunts. “Search the lockers.”


	18. A Rat's Revenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain rat launches a certain revenge virus, with ghoulish results for Murkoff.

One by one, the Murkoff guy throws the locker doors open. I try and think of a plan, but my mind's frozen, trapped in a glacial vice. The locker next to me squeaks, slams. I watch, helpless, as a helmeted man in black body armor steps in front of the slats.

“She's in here. Hands up! Freeze!”

He jerks the door open. I throw my hands in the air, shaking. Blood runs down my arms and legs. Half a dozen guns are trained on me. I brace myself for the end. I'm sorry, Jessie. Dr. Hannigan. I've failed you.

“It's the rat,” he breathes, raising his fist. “Hold your fire!”

He grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me out of the locker. They bind my wrists behind my back with a zip tie. I hang my head, saying nothing.

“Been looking all over for you,” the man in front says, sliding his visor back so I can see his glaring, bloodshot eyes. “You've been a real pain in our collective ass.”

He balls his hand into a fist again and punches me in the abdomen. I double over, coughing, gasping for air. He strikes me again, in the spine, and another soldier catches me before I can fall.

“Blaire wants her in one piece,” the man holding me reminds him.

The other straightens himself out. “Just wanted to give her something for the boys we lost upstairs. Those were good men.”

They drag me out of the lab, my feet scraping against the cold floor. I'm taken to an office with a large window, clouded at the edges with frost.

Jeremy Blaire rises from his desk, placing both hands on its surface.

The men stop across from him. One lifts my head. Blaire takes a long, hard look at my face. Probably deciding on what horrible way he wants to kill me. Distantly, I'm aware the alarms have stopped.

“Where did you find her?” he asks.

“Lab 666,” one answers. “Hiding in a locker. It appears she was using the vents, as we suspected.”

“Finally caught the rat,” Blaire sighs. He walks around the side of his desk, standing right in front of me. I look him in the eyes with pure hatred. He smiles. Reaches out with cold hands and pats me down. He finds Lane's map, unfolds it. Takes the card key and pockets it. Then he reads over the map, a vein throbbing in his forehead.

“I gotta give you credit. I never suspected you were behind the breaches,” he admits. He slaps the paper against the sides of my face. “We've had attempts before, staff and journalists trying to record things, alert the media, become heroes. They became martyrs instead. But you...you must've had help. Where there's one rat, there's always more. I'm guessing Dr. Hannigan, or one of the other patients. Who was it?”

“They're all dead,” I tell him flatly. “It doesn't matter.”

“Ah, but see, it DOES.” Blaire takes out a switchblade and holds it under my chin. “I have people to answer to. I'll happily peel off pieces of your face, until you tell me.”

“Jessie Holmes. Dr. Hannigan. David Annapurna,” I tell him through gritted teeth. The tip of the blade pokes into the soft flesh of my jaw. “All dead. Killed by this place.”

“Liar,” Blaire hisses, and grabs my face in his hand, squeezing hard. “I KNOW you had other help. Setting the Variants free. Tell me who it was, or your nose goes first.”

He presses the blade against my nostril.

“Lane Anderson. A patient,” I say.

Blaire's lips thin into a scowl. “This was my project, and I don't recognize that name. You sure you wanna make that your final answer?”

I say nothing. There's no way I can explain to him what's happened. Blaire's shaking with rage. I wait for the blade to slice off my nose.

Just then, another tactical guy pounds on the office door. “Sir! Dr. Wernicke has arrived! He wants to see you immediately.”

Blaire sighs, and lowers the blade. Folds it and tucks it into his suit pocket.

“This will have to wait,” he says regretfully. To the men, he says, “Throw her in a cell until I get back. And if she gets out, I'll have Trager put all your balls in a jar on my desk.”

They stand at attention until he leaves. He takes one last look at me as he exits the office.

“Be seeing you later, rat.”

I don't know what number that nickname is. I've lost count. Watching Blaire walk away with a team of armed men, I wonder if fate is sparing me, or merely delaying my death, stringing me along.

The soldiers escort me to a block of cells, holding rooms for lab specimens. They toss me in one and slide the door shut, locking it. There' nothing in this room, no bed, no toilet, nothing. Only the cold walls and overhead lights, and a door with no bars on the windows. There are fingernail scratches engraved in the metal walls.

Trapped in a box, I sit cross-legged, contemplating my fate. Outside, I can faintly hear two men guarding my cell, talking.

I get up and press my ear to the door.

“Asshole thinks he can order us around like he's the president,” one says.

“Now that we caught his rat, he'll ease up.”

“His temper tantrums got some of our best men killed, like Greg said. Dude couldn't manage a fucking McDonald's, if you ask me.”

“Don't like how quiet it is down here. When's the sweep start?”

“Should be in about an hour. Once we regain control of the asylum, everything will return to normal. And we can finally get some damn sleep. I've been up 42 hours straight.”

“And no overtime to boot. I might still ask for a transfer. Fuck this place. You out too?”

“Nah. Pay's great. Good benefits, too.”

“Hey assholes!” I yell, as loud as I can. “Is a 401k and a salary really worth killing people? Are you just too much of a pussy to be real cops?”

 “Shoulda gagged her,” one mutters.

“Let her scream. She just wants us to open the door. She's trying to piss us off.”

“Fuck you!” I yell through tears, shoving my shoulder into the door,  until my head rings. “Fuck you! Let me out of here! Motherfuckers!”

The guards say nothing. I storm over to the farthest corner of my cell and sit down, fuming. An hour passes. I hear one of them leave, something about getting a cup of coffee with a splash of bourbon. Just the one standing outside, now.

Lane, what would you do? What would you say? No way I can seduce him into opening the door, not when I'm a bloody wreck, smeared in dust and filth. I look...crazy. They think I'm a Variant. Maybe that angle could work.

I walk over to the door and crouch by the floor. I whisper, just loud enough for the guard to hear, in my best Ellen voice,  “Got them gooood, yessir, I did! They'll never guess where I hid it! All according to plan. Won't be long now! Big surprise coming to 'em. Big fat nasty surprise for Murkoff!”

“Shut up in there!” the guard barks.

“Big explosion. Lots of bodies for the Walrider,” I cackle, doing a convincing witch impression. I howl,  “BIG fireball! Dead bodies, everywhere! You'll never find it! NEVER!”

“Jesus Christ.” The guard pauses. Asks, “What the fuck are you on about?”

“Nothing,” I sing and giggle. “I'll never tell. And you can answer to Blaire later, when it's ALLLL over. Time to swallow my tongue. Bye-bye, cruel world!”

I slam my foot into the wall and make wet choking noises. The guard swears, and the door slides open. The muzzle of his gun turns on me.

“Crazy bitch,” he says. Doubt in his voice; I've planted a seed. “There's no bomb. Shut up or I'll put a bullet in your leg.”

“Wanna bet?” I laugh, blood and drool running down my chin.

The guard looks over his shoulder, then back at me. He pushes the door open, wide, and I see my opportunity. He storms over and jerks me to my feet.

“Should've kept your mouth shut,” he says, pulling me in close. “Now you're really gonna regret it.”

I spit in his face. It hits his mask, but he doesn't appreciate the gesture. He takes the butt of his gun and jabs it at my head. Ducking under the blow, I bring my knee up and crunch it into his genitals. In what is surely my luckiest hour, he's not wearing a cup. He grunts, and the gun sags in his hands for a split second. Using my remaining strength, I shove him into the wall and dash out of the cell. I use my shoulder to push the door shut.

Precious seconds tick by. Recalling what I can of Lane's map, I run to the end of the cell block and turn right. I scan the pipes on the ceiling, but there's no vents in this area. Footsteps and voices drift from the opposite end. I dive into a pile of crates, as the guard runs from the cell block.

“You see a patient come this way?” he asks some scientists as they walk by.

“We just came from C Block,” one says. “Nobody's gone this way.”

“SHIT!” he swears. “I'm so fucked.”

“What's going on? What was that alarm about just now?”

“We've had a dangerous patient escape. Get to your designated safety room and-”

The scientists laugh him off.

“ANOTHER one? Come on man, do your job for once.”

They continue strolling down the hallway. The man curses again and runs back the way he came. Not long after that, the alarm klaxons start wailing:

_SCREEECH SCREEEEEEECH SCREEEEEEEEECH!_

C Block, they said. I'm so close now. Emerging from the crates, I flee down the hallway. I pass through a connecting tunnel and stop just short of the reception desk of C Block. I can see the shadows of security personnel on the wall, but I don't have to worry: there's a vent above my head. Just have to free my hands and climb up.

Need something to cut the zip tie with. I go back, search the pile of crates. There's a nail sticking out of one of them. It's slow going, but I saw and file away the plastic tie on the tip of the nail, until I'm able to pull the tie apart. I climb up onto the pipes, into the metal tube.

It leads me right above the security room. I twist and wind through near-darkness, the air growing colder. I can see through the occasional grate that I'm in a tunnel. The vents end before a locked, reinforced door, with the weird symbol I saw earlier etched into the floor.

Turning my back to the vent grate, I consider my options. Lane said she came through a hole, that she tried to drag David back up it before Walker got him. Maybe if I...

Someone rips the grate off, grabs me by the shoulders, and yanks me out of the vent. The cell guard throws me to the floor, stunning me.

“Blood leaves a trail, bitch,” he says between breaths. Takes aim at me.

“Don't shoot!” a scientist hollers, waving at him. Puffing, they run down the corridor towards us.

“Fuck off! This rat dies, now.”

His finger rests on the trigger. I look up at him, at my killer, no time for goodbyes, last words.

Before he can fire, the scientist slams into him and jabs a needle in his neck. He falls to the ground, unconscious.

“I'm tired of these grunts and their brute force, thinking they can ruin our work,” the scientist growls, impetuous. I can't see their face, as it's covered by a breathing mask and goggles. They turn to me, holding up another syringe.

“Come here, F-36.”

I back away, shaking my head. “Go away!”

The scientist advances on me. Offers me a deal: “Don't be silly, girl. The others are coming. Come quietly with me, and I'll see to it that Blaire doesn't kill you. We heard about what happened at the female ward, the manifestation that appeared there. Some of us are dying to get you back in the lab. We can help each other.”

“Go back? So you can torture me some more?” I snap. “Screw that!”

I dive at him, but he's prepared for it. He sidesteps me easily. The floor is slick with ice, and he slides, grabbing onto my clothes. We go down in a tangled pile, the syringe hovering just above the hollow of my neck. Clawing at his hand, I use my free one to slam his head against the floor. He cries out, drops the needle. I pick it up and stab it into his plastic suit, and he goes limp.

Acting fast, I unzip him and throw the suit on. Then I check his pockets—and nearly sob with joy, pulling out a card key.

Hurrying, I run to the sealed doors, standing on top of the weird sigil. There's no access panel, but the floor must have sensed the card key, because the doors begin to separate with a hiss, retracting into the walls.

As they open, my jaw drops in profound awe.

 

The Morphogenic Engine room is a busy hive of Murkoff's top personnel, both scientists and programmers. The desks and stations are manned by a staff of expertly trained, top-secret specialists, the best of their class. But even these people get used to the banality of the work day, the languorous 9-5 stretch. Certain things fade into the background, becoming commonplace.

Perhaps that is why, as the alarm screeches and the emergency lights flare, no one moves a muscle. The programmers and coders keep on typing and coding. The analysts keep on analyzing. Data gets strung along, down the pipe. The wheel of progress must never be obstructed. Too much is at stake.

No one bats an eye when another hazmat-clad scientist comes strolling into their work space. This newcomer pauses for a minute, perhaps to regard the giant globe: an impressive sight, the illuminated brain of their operation. A few tanks orbit the globe like satellites, currently empty, save for one, where a man floats. Tubes run out of his head, his body bent backwards, a look of nonstop suffering on his face. He's been suspended there for quite some time, just another fixture in the office.

A screen at the base of the globe transmits his brainwaves, displaying results, vitals. Every so often, a blip goes off. Nothing unusual.

The newcomer sits down at an empty computer. Nods to the person next to them, who goes back to their work. It's pointless trying to talk over the sirens. Newcomer jiggles the mouse, to find a locked screen. They pause for a second, thinking, before typing 'David' and hitting enter.

A silent message scrolls across the screen: PASSWORD OVERRIDE ACCEPTED.

They look over their shoulder once. A few scientists take notice, glancing up from their clipboards. Newcomer hits the windows key + r, launches CMD.EXE, and types into the black box: START LUCIFER.

They smash the enter key.

The noise causes a programmer to look up. Newcomer jumps to their feet, as if electrocuted. Boxes pop up on their screen in rapid-fire succession, followed by the dreaded blue screen of death.

“What's going on?” a supervisor asks, walking over. They get a good look. “Shit! What did you do?”

Newcomer shrugs.

 Who are you? Let me see your clearance!”

Newcomer fumbles with their ID badge. The pop-ups spread to the next computer screen, and the next, and the next. The staff throw their hands in the air, some press command keys, trying to regain control.

“It's spread to the other stations!” a staff member yells.“Some sort of virus! Are these...Bible verses?”

“Shut it down! Quick!” The supervisor runs to a panel in the wall and lowers a switch. The entire engine room goes dark, save for the flashing emergency lights. They prime the switch and press a button.

The lights go back on. Computers reboot to their previous save state.

“Where'd they go?” the supervisor asks. The newcomer is nowhere to be found.

“Look!” someone cries, pointing across the room.

From the base of the globe, the monitors and dials are going wild. The tank containing the floating man is frothing, bubbling. Something inside stirs.

“Another containment breach!” the supervisor cries.

“What do we do?”

“Someone unplug him!”

The staff rush down the stairs, into the engine chamber. One types furiously on the main panel below the giant sphere, while the others seize thick cables connecting the tank to the computer's brain.

“He's merged with it!” the supervisor groans. “The fucking virus must have crashed through the barriers. We're too late!”

A cloud of thick, black, rippling smoke rises off the tank like steam. A male figure appears, materializing out of thin air, its dark features obscured to the human eye. A skeletal, alien face leers down at the scientists.

“It's the Walrider!” one screams, struggling with a power cable. “He's escaped! Help me disconnect him!”

The black wraith turns in the direction of the voice. It flies at them, disappearing. The scientist is lifted in the air by invisible hands, spun like a top, and thrown across the room, splattering against the observation window.

The staff abandon the cables, running for their lives. One by one, the Walrider slaughters them, lifting, crushing, throwing them about like ragdolls. It coats the engine room with their blood, before hovering straight into the sealed doors, where it vanishes. But it isn't gone.

From her hiding space—a tiny hole poked through a foil panel near the floor—the newcomer watches. They wait until the Walrider disappears, before slipping away, into a place only rats could know.


	19. Ego te Absolvo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mel and a few unexpected stragglers make a final push to escape. What became of her, the stragglers, and the asylum, is detailed in her final entry.

**September 1 st, 2013 (Less than 1 month before events of Outlast/Whistleblower)**

It's done.

The Walrider has been freed from his metaphysical prison. I don't need to see through the walls and hidden paths through the asylum to know what's going on, the destruction taking place. I can hear the gunshots of the tactical squads, the desperate screams as men fall to the vengeful being unleashed on them. I'll never forget the sound of ribs breaking, snapping like twigs in its deadly embrace.

Variants run like rats on a sinking ship, some of them rejoicing in the chaos.

“He is free!” one cries, as I dart through the kitchens in the hospital ward. “At last! He comes! Let us feast!”

A saw buzzes like an angry hornet. Flesh tears, bones crack.

I keep moving, my chest on fire. Eventually, I emerge into the courtyard. The sun is setting, the sky over the asylum roof a mix of rust and deep, velvety black. The stars are starting to punch through the darkness. A few Variants run in the same direction as me, headed toward administration. Bullets from the prison guard tower slam into the ground in front of me. Variants drop, twitching their last.

Not gonna make it. I cut a diagonal path to the female ward, busting in through a window. I'm back where this all started. There's a commotion up ahead, in the connecting hall to administration. A few remaining orderlies and some Murkoff grunts are piling furniture wildly against a set of doors.

One sees me, hollers, “Don't just stand there! Help us! He's coming!”

Chains rattle from the other side. Walker.

Gigantic fists slam into the doors, bulging them out, pushing the furniture across the tiles. They don't stand a chance.

I'm ready to run back out to the courtyard. Bullets seem better than having my head ripped off. I turn around...to see the twins, stalking down the opposite end of the hall.

“We told you not to come back!” one growls. He stops, raising his blood-soaked knife.

“She didn't listen,” the other says.

“We're done being patient.”

“Let's get a taste.”

They charge.

I duck into a bathroom; I can't remember it from the map, but I climb up on a sink, and press on the ceiling tiles until one gives. Crawling into the ceiling, I hear Walker crash through the doors below. I keep going, wishing I could drown out the hellish cries of the dying.

Dropping into an adjacent bathroom in the admin block, I cross the second floor elevator area. Some Variants are down below, hammering on the doors to the main entrance. They don't notice as I skirt the balcony and run down the next hallway. Reaching the room with the open window, I leap onto the scaffolding, into the dusky air. This time, I won't be turning back. I look up ahead, at the gates. No one's guarding them. This is my chance.

I skirt down the wooden plank and round the corner.

“Yo! You still alive?” a woman's gruff voice calls up to me, scaring me so bad I nearly fall off. I peer over the edge of the scaffold, to see Gina, Rhonda, and Dee staring up at me, from the bottom tier. They're each carrying melee weapons: a baseball bat, a table leg, and a wooden plank.

“I think so!” I call down to them. “Are you all...real?”

“She still crazy,” Dee mutters to Gina. “Let's go.”

“Wait!” I cry, my breath catching in my throat. I can't believe they're still alive. I never thought I'd see any of the women, ever again. “You survived? How?”

“C'mon G,” Rhonda pleads, at her wit's end. “We've made it this far. The exit's right there!”

Gina points to the asylum. Outside the walls, the chaotic racket is dulled to a muffled background dissonance.

“You had somethin' to do with this, didn't you?”

I pause. Nod at them. A breeze tugs my hair.

“You let them monsters free?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Rhonda gasps. “Why would you do that!?”

Dee cries, “You the reason for all this shit? Damn...”

“Hmph.” Gina spits over the side of the scaffold. “Then I guess we owe you one!”

“What!?”

Dee and Rhonda turn to her.

“You can't be serious,” Rhonda groans. “She's the reason for all this. All the bullshit we been through.”

“Murkoff been at this a long time,” Gina tells her angrily, voice shaking. “You saw the same things I did! It ain't all her fault. Not even close.”

“I shut down the computers. It disrupted their program, broke down their security!” I shout. In my haste to explain myself, I fail to hear the board splintering beneath my feet. “Murkoff's done for!”

“Watchit!” Rhonda points up at me, but it's too late. The board splits in two, and I fall into empty air. I hit a plank, which slows me, but I'm still going down, down...

Gina's strong hands catch me by the wrists. I dangle in the air, my feet kicking. Dee leans over and helps. Together they pull me onto their platform. I sit on my knees, catching my breath, as the three women gather around, hefting their weapons.

“What should we do with her?” Rhonda asks, smacking the table leg against her palm. “Don't trust her.”

“Me neither,” Dee says, frowning. Her wooden plank rests on her hip.

A long pause. I don't have the strength to argue anymore. More gunshots pop off from somewhere in the asylum. The three women glance behind them nervously.

Finally, Gina extends her hand to me, pulls me to my feet.

“Anyone who can survive this place, I ain't gonna be the one to stop 'em from gettin' out. She comes with us.”

The other two exchange looks, but they don't protest. Whatever trials they went through inside, they respect Gina, and the decision's final. We descend the scaffolding and reach ground level. Gina and Rhonda start pulverizing a section of the first gate, hitting it with their weapons until a hole opens up.

We duck through and start running. As we cross the driveway, Dee looks me up and down, cocking an eyebrow.

“What's with the nurse getup?”

“It's a long fucking story,” I sigh. The torn hazmat suit is crumpled in a pile, somewhere in the vents.

At last we've arrived at the outer gates. No way over them but to climb up. Gina gives us each a lift, and we help pull her over the brick wall.

Once our feet land on the other side, we take a moment to catch our breath. Rhonda gets on her knees and presses her face into the earth. Dee collapses on her backside and throws her head back, mouth open, but no sound comes out as she cries. Gina stands with her head bowed, the baseball bat clutched to her chest.

I lean against a tree and press my face into its bark, inhaling the scent of wood, of grass. The normal sounds of nature are almost jarring to my ears. Crickets chirp in the woods behind us. Wind rustles the leaves. A full moon illuminates the only road leading to and from the asylum. God, how long has it been since I've seen the outside world?

The others are having a similar epiphany. The three women are streaked with blood, covered in dust, bruises. Rhonda's lip is badly cut, and Dee's missing a chunk out of her ear.

Gina grunts and says, “We look like shit. What happened to your leg, man?”

“That's also a long story,” I say, still panting.

“You better be able to keep up. We ain't carrying you.”

I nod. “I'll be okay. How did...how did you three survive? I thought all the other women were dead.”

Gina lifts her baseball bat behind her and grasps both ends, stretching, a pained expression on her face. “After we woke up, you know, when they gassed us, there was a security breach. We escaped.”

“None of you got pregnant, like the others?”

Dee looks up at me and grins. “Guess that Nazi mind-control shit don't work on us lesbos.” She shrugs. “Or black folks.”

I stifle a laugh. It makes my ribs hurt.

Rhonda adds, “We tried to get out through the sewers. Ended up getting lost. Holed ourselves up for a while, thought maybe we could ride it out.”

Gina shuts her eyes, remembering something atrocious. “But it became VERY fuckin' clear we had to leave.”

The other two bow their heads in silence.

After a while I say, “Murkoff will probably send reinforcements. We better get off the road.”

“Police'll be lookin' for us too,” Gina adds.

Rhonda and Dee nod, helping each other to their feet.

“Where do we go?” Dee asks.

“Into the woods,” I suggest, shivering in the night air. “We can try and find a town, maybe. Get some help.”

“I don't like the sound of it,” Gina admits. “But anything's better than goin' back there. Let's go.”

We take to the forest, running through patches of moonlight, branches and leaves crunching under our feet. The farther we get from the asylum, the better I start to feel. We still check over our shoulders often, maybe to reassure ourselves this isn't a dream. I don't think I'll ever be able to shake it, the uncanny feeling that someone's following me.

We climb a steep embankment a few miles out, overlooking the asylum. We sit on that hill, in the dirt and grass, taking in as much fresh air as our lungs can possibly hold. The building has gone dark, ony a few lights glowing from the windows like the eyes of some nocturnal predator. It sits, crouched, an ancient, stone gargoyle, nestled at the foot of the mountains. It doesn't belong there, in nature.

“Jesus,” Gina breathes. The others are too drained to speak.

“Look!” I point, not at the asylum, but at the road snaking through the woods. Headlights. We watch as a train of big, white vans rushes toward Mount Massive.

“Murkoff guys,” Rhonda says. “You were right, Mel.”

We watch as the gates swing open, letting in the vans. Men the size of ants, dressed in black, swarm the building. Flashes as stun grenades go off. Gunfire.

Screams.

Dee flips her dreadlocks over her shoulder. “There it goes. That's the end for Mount Massive. Good riddance.”

Gina shakes her head. “Nah, man. They ain't done with that place. It ain't over.”

“Hmph,” Rhonda snorts, and turns her face away from the scene.

“The Walrider's free now,” I say. “Anything can happen.”

A strong wind kicks up, blowing our hair and clothes, shaking the trees. The three women give me confused looks. I don't say anything else to them. I know when to shut up and enjoy the silence.

**December 20 th, 2013**

Dear Diary,

It's been three months or so since my escape from that place. Figured it was time to buy a new journal. Check in with the old psyche. You'll forgive me for not writing in a while. It's been a long fuckin year.

Rhonda, Gina, Dee, and I spent the night on that hill, huddled together for warmth. Three killers and a broken girl, united by the primal instinct to keep warm, shelter in numbers. The din of the asylum coming apart was music to our ears, but truth be told, we were too fatigued to do anything else. Gradually, the noises from the raid died down, and the asylum went totally dark.

We awoke before dawn, to find the lights of Mount Massive were back on. Gina was right; Murkoff wasn't letting that place go easily. We trekked on foot to the next town over, which was hardly more than a Walmart and a few chain stores, a trucker motel, and a main street full of run-down homes. The kind of post-apocalyptic America shit they don't show you in the Boulder timeshare pamphlets. While we walked, I told them most of my story, leaving out the worst parts. I also told them about Jessie and Dr. Hannigan. Father Martin and the Variants. Some stuff I had to cut out, simply because I couldn't find the words to explain.

The others understood. There was a look in their eyes, a haunted reflection I can still see sometimes, when I'm in front of a mirror. Don't know how we got on the subject, but Gina vowed to never kill again. Said Mount Massive scared her straight. I believe her. The other two seemed determined to turn their lives around.

But life's hard for escaped convicts anywhere, even the repentant ones. We knew we had to act fast.

We broke into one of those clothing donation bins, dressed ourselves like proper Americans: Old, musky XXL sweatshirts with Looney Tunes (oh, the irony) printed on them, mom jeans, grayed sneakers. With no money and no direction, we were in a sorry state of affairs. The news reports were already cropping up, but strangely there was nothing about escaped inmates. Only that there had been 'catastrophic security failures' that Murkoff had quickly contained, or so their PR guy said. I assumed we were in the clear, but Gina and the others insisted Murkoff would hunt us down for what we know. Policy of retaliation or something like that; a gangster code as old as time itself.

My leg injury made the next decision for us. When I couldn't walk anymore and passed out in the streets, the girls dropped me off at the town's urgent care. The nurses took one glance at me and had me transferred to the nearest ER, over an hour away. I can't begin to describe the terror. Could barely let the doctors work on me. I kept calling one of them Trager, but I doubt they'll make the connection.

They managed to save my leg. Said I had an infection that could have killed an elephant, and it's a miracle I survived. They said maybe I had some guardian angels looking out for me. They left me there, in outpatient recovery, to my nightmares, my tribulations. Would men like Blaire, men in black suits come to get me, in the middle of the night? Give me one final injection, to silence any whistleblowing? Despite my sleepless nights, the attack never came.

Then, strangely, a package arrived for me, unmarked. From Mexico.

No note inside, but $10,000 in cash. Guess Gina and the others felt like they owed me something, for helping them escape.

There was one other thing in the package: a card with a phone number. I left the hospital shortly after, got a cheap hotel room, and called it. Some guy in Detroit, says he can set me up with a fake name and ID, Social Security, the works. A new life.

I grabbed a bus and went across the country. The further I put Colorado behind me, the better I felt. It still feels safer to sleep under a bed than on top of it, but I'm working on it.

Once in Detroit, I met with a guy at a barbeque joint, the name escapes me. As I demolished enough ribs to feed an entire army, he set me up with everything I'd need to find a job, get a place. As long as I keep my head down, he told me, I'll be okay. He never mentioned Gina, or the others. I tried to bring them up once, but he shoved more ribs in front of me, told me he'd never seen a white girl as skinny and small as I was.

With just about ten grand in my pocket, the next logical move was to spend it all trying to find an apartment in NYC. Figured it'd be enough for two months' rent. Ha ha. Instead I found a group of recovering addicts, aspiring artists and writers, people I feel comfortable around. We share an apartment in Brooklyn. I got a job at a bakery, making bike deliveries. Trying to start classes and pick up my psych major where I left off, but getting the funds is difficult for someone like me. Until then, there's the library, and all the free books I can handle.

Life's overall pretty sweet. I haven't had a blackout since the asylum. My roommates don't grill me about my past, and I don't ask about theirs. Unspoken rule. They're even nice enough to not mention the shouts coming from my room at night, when I dream and wake up, drenched in sweat. Every so often, a stranger will recognize me on the streets, pulling me back into that paranoid place of darkness and fear. Most of the time they ask about my art, why I gave up on the scene. I assumed they were asking for Lane, so I did some research. A few articles: “Local Artist Vanishes” “Gallery Up for Auction”, stuff like that. I even found some related to Natalie: “Underground Punk Scene Mourns Loss of Lead Guitarist”. “Controversial Band _Total_ _Morbidity_ Plays Farewell Show in Iceland, Police Called”, “Performance Artist, Alternative Model Disappears: Murder, or Vanishing Act?”.

I figure Lane and Natalie might have bank accounts somewhere with their earnings, but something tells me to leave it alone. I want nothing to do with any of the other halves, the remnants of their lives. It's better to let the ghosts rest in their graves.

One thing did bother me enough to delve deeper: Ellen Rivers. Did she kill anyone? She told me she hadn't, but Ellen was, first and foremost, a liar. I scoured the Internet, but couldn't find any news about a woman spree-killing truckers. All I kept finding were links to a female serial killer by the name of Aileen Wuornos. Their first names are too similar for it be a coincidence. Dimly, I can recall following her case growing up. My mom had coverage of her trial on 24/7. Something about Aileen's attitude must have struck a note with me, a helpless little kid afraid of the world.

Thus, Ellen Rivers.

Snowing today, a few inches to coat the frozen Hudson. I went walking along the river, lost in my thoughts. I'll be working double shifts until Christmas Day, but I don't mind keeping busy.

I still follow news about Murkoff, here and there. I make sure I use a public computer when I do. Turns out they lost control of the asylum again, mid-September. It's shut down, closed to the public and to patients. The official report stated that there was another security breach. Unofficially, there was something about a whistleblower, a disgruntled IT employee. That's what the message boards said on the Missing Persons website I frequent. Who knows what's real, what's rumors. Once you let a genie out of a bottle, you can't get him to go back inside, no matter how many guns you point at him.

A journalist also went missing. Someone's inquiring after him, all over the message boards. I wish I could help them. Maybe I'll reach out anonymously, tell them my story. My hands are twitching more and more, lately. Could just be the cold weather.

I'll try and write in here, when I can. This is the start of a new chapter for me, as my roomies in therapy say. They keep asking me to come with them, but I think my answers are in psychology and my studies, not in a circle of chairs with a bunch of strangers. Been there, done that.

Who knows, maybe I'll write a book on all of it, one day. Until then, I've got this diary, and enough work to keep me occupied.

It's almost enough to drown out the screams, the nightmares.

Almost.

But you know what they say: what keeps you weird, keeps you motivated.

-Mel

  **END.**


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